Best Odds Center
best odds centre button
Click here!
Sport TV
watch live tv button
Click here!
to watch
Live FootBall
NPFL
Click here!
Live Scores
play watch Live Score button
Click here!

Bernard Hinault Reflects on 1980 Glory Ahead of 2027 World Championships

Posted : 17 April 2025

French cycling icon Bernard Hinault is eagerly anticipating the 2027 World Championships, which will revisit the grueling course in Sallanches where he secured his lone world title in 1980. That year, Hinault dominated a demanding 260-kilometre race made up of 20 laps, each featuring the tough 2.5km Domancy climb.

 

Now serving as an event ambassador, the five-time Tour de France winner returned to the iconic route—renamed the Route Bernard Hinault—on an electric bike, reflecting on the brutal nature of the course and its potential to challenge today’s stars like Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel.

 

Despite joking that he had no personal desire to climb Domancy again, Hinault remains proud of how he's celebrated in Sallanches, where a towering stele of his likeness stands at the town entrance. While only two other Frenchmen—Laurent Brochard and Julian Alaphilippe—have won world titles since his triumph, Hinault believes the one-day format could favor an opportunistic French rider.

 

He noted that a clever breakaway rider with patience and endurance could seize the moment, although he warned that such a demanding course won't allow for a surprise winner: "One thing is for sure, a journeyman will not win it."

 

Hinault emphasized how the circuit's repetition adds a unique challenge, requiring constant focus and tactical awareness to stay near the front of the race. Reflecting on his own duel with Italian Gianbattista Baronchelli in 1980, he recounted how he attacked on the final climb when Baronchelli faltered under the strain.

 

 "It was nip and tuck between us," he recalled, but his final burst was decisive. The terrain, he warned, quickly exposes weakness—many riders, he remembered, were minutes off the pace just a few laps in, already questioning their place in the race.

 

ADD A COMMENT :

Hot Topics

close button
Please fill captcha :