Bernard hinault

Bernard Hinault (Yffiniac, Côtes d'Armor, November 14, 1954) is a retired French cyclist, winner of ten Grand Tours, a feat second only to Belgian Eddy Merckx (11). Specialist in time trial stages, where he took the greatest possible advantage over his opponents to win races.

Nicknamed Le Blaireau ('The Badger') in France and Caiman in Spain, he dominated the international scene between the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, winning 216 races and becoming the French cyclist with the best record of all time.

Although they share the same birthplace and last name, he is not related to the younger cyclist Sébastien Hinault.

Biography

Hinault was born in 1954 in the Breton town of Yffiniac, the second oldest of the four children of Joseph and Lucie Hinault. The family lived in a cottage called La Clôture, built shortly after Hinault's birth. His parents were farmers and the children often had to help out at harvest time. His father later worked as a signalman for the national railway company SNCF. Hinault was described as a "hyperactive" child, and his mother nicknamed him the 'little hooligan'. He was not a good student, but he visited the technical school in Saint-Brieuc for an engineering apprenticeship. There he began athletics, becoming a runner and finishing tenth in the French junior long-distance championships in 1971.

In December 1974, just before turning professional, he married Martine, whom he had met at a family wedding the previous year. Their first son, Mickael, was born in 1975, with a second, Alexandre, in 1981. Hinault and his family lived in Quessoy, near Yffiniac, while he was a professional cyclist. After his retirement, they moved to a farm located about 40 miles from there, in Brittany, Hinault had bought in 1983 the 48-hectare property near Calorguen, the town of which Martine would be elected mayor.

Unlike many other retired cyclists, Hinault never became a team manager after his cycling career. Bids by Bouygues Télécom and a Chinese investor in the mid-2000s fell through. He was the coach of the French national team from 1988 to 1993, and in the 2014 season he took on the role of 'patron'. with British team Virtus. In June 2020, Hinault became part of a group of investors brought together to save cycling equipment company Mavic, a longtime sponsor of the Tour de France. Mavic had gone into receivership earlier that year due to the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sports achievements

Hinault one of the best in the history of this sport. Like his compatriot Jacques Anquetil and the Belgian Eddy Merckx, he closed his career with five non-consecutive victories in the Tour de France (years later, the Spanish Miguel Induráin would become the first to win all five).

He was the first cyclist to obtain more than one outright victory in the three Grand Tours, winning five Tours, three Giros and two Vueltas. In the three major rounds he achieved a total of 41 stage victories by taking 28 stages in the Tour, 7 stages in the Vuelta and 6 stages in the Giro.

Among his main victories in one-day races, we can mention his five Cycling Monuments: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (77 and 80); Tour of Lombardy (79 and 84) and Paris Roubaix of 1981. The Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1980 achieved it under the snow, reaching the finish line with more than nine minutes ahead of the second, the Dutch Hennie Kuiper. In addition, among others, he won the classic Walloon Arrow twice (79, 83); the Amstel Gold Race in 1981, the Ghent-Wevelgem in 1977 and the Nations Grand Prix five times (77, 78, 79, 82 and 84).

He also won minor laps, such as the Dauphiné Libéré (1977, 1979, 1981); the International Criterium (1978, 1981) or the Tour de Romandie, in addition to others of a lower rank.

All of the above led him to win the Super Prestige Pernod International four times (1979, 80, 81 and 82), for the best cyclist of those years.

His gold medals in the 1978 French Road Championship and, above all, in the road race of the 1980 Road Cycling World Championship in Sallanches, complete one of the most brilliant cycling careers of all the times.

Among his main rivals, we must mention the Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk, the Belgian Lucien van Impe, the Portuguese Joaquim Agostinho, the Frenchman Laurent Fignon and the American Greg LeMond. The last two after having been his teammates and gregarious in the Renault squad.

His last race was on November 9, 1986, a cyclo-cross race very close to Yffiniac. He was linked to the organization of the Tour de France until 2018.

Honours of Prizes

Results

Hinault in 1978.

During his racing career he achieved the following places in Grand Tours, minor tours and one-day races:

Grand Tours

Minor turns

Classics, Championships and JJ. oh.

Race		1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986
	Milan-San Remo	-	54.	-	-	-	7.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ghent-Wevelgem		-	-	-	1.o	-	8.	-	42.	-	-	-	-	-
	Tour de Flandes	-	-	-	-	11.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	Paris-Roubaix	-	-	-	-	13.	11.	4.o	1.o	9.	-	-	-	-
Amstel Gold Race		-	-	-	-	-	-	5.o	1.o	-	-	-	-	-
Flecha Valona		-	-	-	31.o	-	1.o	3.o	42.	15.	1.o	19.	23.	16.
	Liège-Bastoña-Lieja	-	-	-	1.o	-	2.	1.o	18.	-	32.o	19.	18.	-
Classic San Sebastian		X	X	X	X	X	X	X	-	-	-	28.o	-	-
Zurich Championship		-	-	-	-	-	-	29.o	-	-	-	4.o	58.o	-
Plouay Grand Prix		-	11.	-	6.o	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Paris-Tours		-	56.o	79.o	47.	27.	6.o	-	-	44.	-	28.o	-	-
	Giro de Lombardy	-	-	17.	-	3.o	1.o	-	-	-	-	1.o	-	-
World on Route		-	-	6.o	8.	5.o	21.	1.o	3.o	Ab.	-	Ab.	Ab.	59.o
France on Route		-	-	-	-	1.o	2.	2.	-	-	-	-	-	-

—: Does not participate
Ab.: Abandon
X: Uncelebrated editions

Awards and recognitions

• Mendrisio de Oro (1979 and 1980)
• In 2002 he was appointed as one of the most outstanding cyclists in history, as he was part of the Inaugural Session of the ICU Hall of Fame.

Teams

• Gitane-Campagnolo (1975-1977)
• Renault (1978-1983)
  • Renault-Gitane-Campagnolo (1978)
  • Renault-Gitane (1979-1980)
  • Renault-Elf-Gitane (1981-1982)
  • Renault-Elf (1983)
• La Vie Claire (1984-1986)
  • La Vie Claire-Terraillon (1984)
  • La Vie Claire-Wonder-Radar (1985-1986)