After a frustrating start to the Giro, Thibaut Pinot had “pleasure” on Monday by donning the blue jersey of best climber which allows him to “bring a little color back” to his team, even if he does not particularly intend to defend it. “We had a start to the Giro which was not particularly good. If it can put some color back into the team, that’s pretty cool. It’s a small bonus, it’s nice to have this jersey for the first time,” said the climber from Groupama-FDJ.
“It allows us to break the negative spiral a little after Rudy’s accident (Molard, Friday on the eve of the start), the lap time where we were hoping for a little better and yesterday’s break”, added the Franc-Comtois who points to 2:05 behind leader Remco Evenepoel in the general classification after an average prologue on Saturday and a loss of 19 seconds in a break on Sunday. On Monday, he “delighted” himself by sprinting at the top of the two climbs of Monticchio and Valico, about thirty kilometers from the goal, to get the points of the mountain and succeed another Frenchman, Paul Lapeira, who carried the blue jersey on Monday.
“It started with a discussion with Rudy (Molard) during the stage. The day was rather long, and then the breakaway was caught. It didn’t cost me any energy, it was a useful effort, let’s say,” commented Pinot, a big PSG fan, who put on the distinctive jersey as the sound system spit out the music that accompanies the entrance. players at the Olympique de Marseille Velodrome.
However, he does not necessarily intend to defend his jersey on Tuesday during a mid-mountain stage comprising three passes at an altitude of more than 1,000 meters: “for the moment, this is not an objective, it would be necessary to leave in the breakaway tomorrow and I’m not sure I have a good exit. But maybe I’ll change my mind in the third week.” But, he added, “the feelings are good”, for his third and last Giro, after a fourth place in 2017 and a retirement in 2018 when he was third, before retiring at the end of the season. , at the age of 33.
