After winning the 1983 Vuelta a España, a return of his knee problems forced him to miss that year’s Tour de France….which was won by his teammate Laurent Fignon…..when tensions within the Renault team led to his leaving and joining La Vie Claire….when with his new team, he raced the 1984 Tour de France, being comprehensively beaten by Fignon…..then he recovered the following year, winning another Giro-Tour double with the help of teammate Greg LeMond in 1985. In the 1986 Tour de France, he engaged in an intra-team rivalry with LeMond….who won his first of three Tours….as Hinault retired shortly thereafter.
Bernard Hinault remains the most recent French winner of the Tour de France….who aAfter his cycling career turned to farming, while fulfilling representative duties for the organizers of the Tour de France…. which is a position he held until 2016. Throughout his career, Hinault was known by the nickname le blaireau, a term translated in English as “badger”….as he associated himself with the animal on the grounds of its aggressive nature, a trait he embodied on the bike. Within the cycling field, Hinault filled the role of patron, meaning that he exercised authority over races he took part in.
