Paris (AFP)

The day of the breakup. Bernard Hinault, the last French winner of the Tour, of which he is one of the legendary champions, also suffered setbacks, the most important of which was his secret departure from Pau on July 9, 1980, due to the fault of one knee recalcitrant.

Leaving from Frankfurt, the Breton is the immense favorite of the race in which he won the two previous editions. He has just won a memorable edition in the snow of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, won the Giro for the first time and, at 25, seems very close to its peak. Behind him, a dedicated Renault team and a mentor, the clever Cyrille Guimard, nicknamed the "Napoleon of cycling".

He wins the prologue, accommodates the cobblestones he hates, however, settles in a good place. But that's without taking into account the weather, repeated rains that cause an epidemic of tendonitis and affect many runners, including Hinault.

If he takes back the yellow jersey in favor of the Laplume time trial (Lot-et-Garonne) halfway through, the harm is there. The next evening, the French waited 22:30 to slip away on tiptoe. He discreetly leaves, through the kitchens, the hotel (the Continental) of his team and climbs in the rain in the gray Renault 20 of one of his team-mates, Hubert Arbes, in order to reach a quiet villa near Lourdes. Without responding to the press.

It was not until the next day that Hinault spoke, while the future winner, the Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk, refused to don the yellow jersey at the start of Pau.

- "A man like the others" -

"Faced with suffering, finally, I'm just a man like the others. With his limits. I could have started from Pau but to stop in the first pass and see the peloton from behind, no way," said the inimitable "Badger" who said in relation to his nickname: "I have the same reactions. When I get bored, I go into my hole. But when I go out, I bite!"

He also returns to the misunderstanding that will mark his relations with the media for some time. Because of his stealthy departure from the hotel, in the rain, while the directors of the Tour (Jacques Goddet, Félix Lévitan) dine in the same establishment with the secretary general of the Communist Party Georges Marchais, guest of honor. A few hours earlier, Hinault had repeated in front of the microphones his desire to continue the race.

"It could surprise, even irritate you," he admits. "I did not have the courage to face a press conference. In the state of tension in which I was, I was not sure of controlling myself. An inappropriate question, and I was capable of violence."

"The best solution was to retire so as not to compromise the rest of the season," he explains. The facts will prove him right. Less than two months later, on August 31, on the Sallanches circuit (Haute-Savoie), the French champion will outrageously dominate the world championship.

© 2020 AFP