Today was unveiled the course of the next Tour. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) said he was "rather pleasantly surprised" by the route of the 2019 Tour, unveiled Thursday in Paris, "with many stages in the east of France".
Today was unveiled the course of the next Tour de France. A course that pleases the French rider, Thibaut Pinot. " There is a lot of mountain and the first comes after four days" , welcomed the winner of the recent Tour of Lombardy who lingered on the stage of The Plank of Beautiful Girls, near his home Melisey ( Haute-Saône). "It will be a beautiful mountain stage with the Grand Ballon, the Ballon d'Alsace, the (Col des) Chevrères. These are collars that I do every week, I know by heart. For me, this is perhaps one of the most beautiful stages of the Tour and I'm looking forward to it, " responded the Franc-Comtois.
"Before, I never thought that the Tour de France would arrive at the Planche des Belles Daughters, especially four times in eight years," added Pinot. "The climb is quite short with percentages that are pretty hard on the end. The difficulty will be even higher with the last passage (at 20%), it's even better for me. " Although he prefers " enjoy the holidays " for now, the French (28 years) said that the Tour "Will be a big goal next year" .
Third in 2014 and a stage winner twice (2012 and 2015), he accumulated negative experiences in 2016 and 2017 before having to give up last summer, failing to be reinstated in time of a beginning of pneumonia.