Bernard Hinault

Bernard Hinault was born on 14 November 1954 in the Breton village of Yffiniac, the second of four children. His parents were farmers, and his father later worked for the national railway. As a child, Hinault was hyperactive—his mother called him a “little hooligan”—and he struggled at school, though he did take up an engineering apprenticeship. He started running, finishing tenth in the French junior cross-country championship in 1971.

He got into cycling through a cousin, René, who raced on weekends. Hinault initially used the family’s shared bike, then got his own at 15 after passing his exams. He got a racing licence in April 1971 and won his first race on 2 May. He won his first five races and finished the year with twelve wins from twenty starts. His father opposed his cycling ambitions, but Hinault ran away from home for three days, sleeping in a barn, and his father relented.

In 1972, Hinault raced against riders over 18. He and René once crossed the finish line together to share a win, upsetting the organisers. He won nineteen races that season, including the national junior championship, beating older competitors. He was conscripted into the military in 1973 and didn’t race that year. Returning to competition in 1974, he won his first race back despite being overweight. That year, his last as an amateur, he also won the national pursuit championship on the track and took a road race in his hometown of Yffiniac.

Hinault turned professional in 1975 with Gitane–Campagnolo. In 1977 he broke through, winning Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. The following year he won his first two Grand Tours: the Vuelta a España and the Tour de France. He added another Tour win in 1979 and the Giro d’Italia in 1980. A knee injury forced him to abandon the 1980 Tour while leading, but he came back to win the World Championship road race later that year. He won the Tour again in 1981 and completed his first Giro-Tour double in 1982.

After winning the 1983 Vuelta, knee problems returned and he missed that year’s Tour, which his teammate Laurent Fignon won. Conflict within the Renault team led Hinault to join La Vie Claire. In the 1984 Tour he lost to Fignon by over ten minutes. He rebounded in 1985, winning another Giro-Tour double with help from teammate Greg LeMond. The 1986 Tour saw an intra-team rivalry with LeMond, who won his first Tour. Hinault retired at the end of that season.

In total, Hinault entered thirteen Grand Tours. He abandoned one while in the lead, finished second twice, and won the other ten—one short of Eddy Merckx’s record. No rider since has won more than seven. He is the most recent French winner of the men’s Tour de France. After retiring, he took up farming and served as an enforcer for Tour de France organisers until 2016.

Hinault was known as Le Blaireau (“The Badger”), a nickname he embraced for the animal’s aggressive nature, which he showed on the bike. In the peloton, he acted as patron, controlling the races he entered. He married Martine in December 1974, just before turning professional. They had two sons, Mickael (1975) and Alexandre (1981). The family lived in Quessoy while he raced, then moved to a farm near Calorguen, which Hinault had bought in 1983. Martine later became mayor of Calorguen. Despite sharing a surname and birthplace, Hinault is not related to the younger cyclist Sébastien Hinault.