It’s been a long time since Thibaut Pinot started a cycling season with such enthusiasm. Even if the 2022 edition is the one for which the Franche-Comté climber has the least certainty. He doesn’t even know if he will be the leader of his Groupama-FDJ team in the next Tour de France. But Pinot, following a 2021 edition where he visited hospitals more to finally treat his back problems than the roads, has ants in his calves.
He was to officially resume competition from February 18 to 20 at the Tour du Haut Var. But he decided to hang up his first bib this Sunday at the Grand Prix La Marseillaise before continuing on to the Etoile de Bessèges. He had been thinking regarding it for a long time but was waiting to know how he felt during the last collective training camp in Spain.
“We decided to bring forward my start to the season because I feel pretty good, underlines Pinot. My last two camps have done me a lot of good and I felt an improvement on the last one in Tenerife. I feel capable of weighing on the race, I can’t wait to get back into the rhythm. In addition, La Marseillaise is an event that I appreciate because it is quite hard, it may suit me. I haven’t contested it since 2017, it’s a pleasure to come back. »
If Pinot is also in a hurry to return, it is also because he knows that, this year, he is not yet guaranteed to be the head of the team on the next Grande Boucle. Marc Madiot, his general manager, was clear at the start of the season. It will be the results that will decide whether he or David Gaudu, his ex-lieutenant who rose to prominence during his recovery, will be the leader. Pinot accepted the new rules. And he therefore wants to regain the rhythm of the race as quickly as possible before competing in Tirreno-Adriatico next March once morest Julian Alaphilippe in particular.
Another Frenchman, less known, for the moment, to the general public but also endowed with enormous potential, will be to follow this Sunday. Benoît Cosnefroy, the AG2R-Citroën rider. Winner of the Marseillaise in 2020, just before his teammate Aurélien Paret-Peintre last year, Cosnefroy is also advancing with great ambitions in 2022. Initially, he too was not due to line up at the GP La Marseillaise. He should have made his return to Spain in Mallorca but, tested positive for Covid last weekend, he changed his program.
« I resume with a more classic program, explains the Norman puncher. I will have a double objective: to refine the preparation and to perform if I have the capacities. I hope to arrive in March in full possession of my faculties. The month of April will also be very important with the Ardennes classics. »
