It was 2018, but it's "like it was yesterday." It's already been five years since the French climber had returned to the Giro and this is an opportunity for him, who will retire at the end of the season, to see that a career "goes by very quickly".

In the eyes of the Groupama-FDJ rider, who will turn 33 on May 29, it "was not even imaginable to do my last season without the grand tour that I prefer", as he confided Wednesday three days before the start.

Because he loves Italy and its frenzied races, scene of many of his greatest exploits. But also because he has "a revenge to take on the Giro" that he had left by ambulance in 2018, abandoning after a terrible penultimate stage, victim of a beginning of pneumonia, while he was still third overall the same morning.

This time, there will be no question of aiming for the pink jersey. The objective is first to target a beautiful stage victory in the mountains, as in 2017, during his first participation, when he won in Asiago, on the eve of the finish in Milan where he finished fourth overall, despite ten days of illness.

"Why not a Top 5?"

But do you ever know? In such an unpredictable race, "why not go and get a place in the Top 5?" if, for example, "bad weather or cold get involved", conditions he loves.

French cyclist Thibaut Pinot before the Strade Bianche, on March 4, 2023 in Siena © Marco BERTORELLO / AFP/Archives

"I think I can fight every day for the general and why not one day go for a stage win. One does not preclude the other, he added. Where I take the most pleasure is still to be with the favorites of the Giro. Last year, I was quite frustrated with my Tour de France and my Vuelta where I wasn't playing the general."

It must be said that after two very complicated seasons, spoiled by a back injury following his fall on the Tour de France 2020, the Franc-Comtois remains on a convincing start to the year, with three second places and a total of eight Top 10, including the general classifications of Tirreno-Adriatico (10th in March) and the Tour de Romandie (5th Sunday).

And in Italy, the Frenchman will find a playground to his liking, far from the infernal pressure of the Tour de France which he will perhaps compete in July in a role of lieutenant of David Gaudu, four years after having raised the wildest hopes there, before giving up, injured in the thigh, while he was "at the peak of (his) career".

At its best level since 2020

"I have a lot of pleasure to return to Italy and find an audience of fans, connoisseurs. I've always loved racing there," insists Pinot, who in 2018 signed one of his greatest triumphs at the Tour of Lombardy.

If he has only two participations in the Giro to date, it is in spite of himself. "I would have liked to do it more often but Marc (Madiot, the manager of the Groupama-FDJ team) has always prevented me" to favor the Tour de France, he slipped in a smile in the off-season when unveiling his calendar.

Unlike the Tour de France, "very nervous" and full of "traps", the Giro is a "simpler", more "disjointed" race, where there is "less calculation".

"It's harder too and it's often played on the pedal", especially in the arrivals at the top of the third week where he dreams of "increasing power" and competing with the best, but "without taking the lead".

"I'm pretty far from my 2019 level. But I no longer have back problems and I think I'm at a level I haven't experienced since 2020. This is only my third participation in the Giro, it remains a big regret in my career not to have done it more often. I hope to catch up this year."

© 2023 AFP