A great Tour de France, except for the French, of course | Bob Ford

“There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.” — Montaigne

For 34 disappointing years now, the good people of France have lined the grandest boulevard in the world, the Champs-Élysées in Paris, as they did again on Sunday, to watch the procession as the Tour de France peloton made its final, buzzing revolutions from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.

They have seen a lot in those 34 years, including the rise and fall of great teams, the arrival and passing of many worthy champions, the struggles of a sport hectored by scandal and dogged by unanswerable questions.

There is one thing the fans have not seen, however. They have not seen a Frenchman enter victoriously into Paris wearing the yellow jersey of the leader for the ceremonial final stage with a championship assured.

Not since Bernard Hinault in 1985 has that triumphant entrance for France been the case, and the French have been required to survey their greatest sporting event from the plateau of higher moral ground rather than the top step of the podium. Truth be told, they don’t really mind that view.

The 106th edition of the Tour concluded Sunday, and its final days were excruciating for the French, who lost not just one contender for the overall win, but a second one as well, all within an hour in the high Alps.

Thibaut Pinot, positioned solidly among the leaders and a wonderful climber with a real chance, abandoned the race on Friday when a leg bruise, suffered as he avoided a crash a few days before, worked itself into muscle damage, and he could not continue. That national sigh was followed by shrieks when the yellow jersey of the overall leader was removed from the back of Julian Alaphilippe by the cruelest of misfortune; a weather-caused shortening of the stage just after he cracked on an ascent that would, unfortunately for him, mark the final time of the day.

The official stoppage took place on the roof of the tour, atop the massive Col d’Iseran, but the leading riders already crested the summit and had begun a descent toward the valley of the Isere River where a freak snow-and-hail storm blocked the roadway below. They were flagged down by officials eventually, but it was chaos on the road, and Alaphilippe’s shoulders sagged as he learned his race lead was gone.

It is one thing to lose when victory is not expected, but another when victory has been tantalizingly dangled in front of one’s face for two weeks. Alaphilippe was not considered a true contender at the start. He is known as a puncheur, a capable rider on rolling terrain, but not a real climber. Still, he took yellow in the eighth stage of the race, guarded it with an amazing time-trial stage, and, despite some bobbles, came out of the Pyrenees, the first set of mountains, still holding the lead. If he could do the same in the Alps, the curse of bad French luck would be broken.

Failing that, fellow countryman Pinot looked as strong as any of the other top contenders: Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal of Team Enios, previously sponsored by Sky, and the winners of six of the previous seven Tours; Steven Kruijswijk of the Netherlands, and Emanuel Buchmann of Germany.

What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out, everything.

Truthfully, Alaphillipe did not figure to keep his yellow, in any case. He is an excellent descender, but Friday’s truncated stage and the final mountain stage on Saturday both had grueling uphill finishes. The real end for France’s chance of a victory came when Pinot was forced to abandon.

Bernal, who went into yellow atop d’Iseran, rode a steady race on Saturday to secure his win over teammate Thomas, and assure that Sunday’s flat entrance to Paris would be just for show as far as the overall standings were concerned. Alaphilippe, meanwhile, drifted disconsolately to fifth place on the last climb. Bernal is the first Colombian winner of the Tour de France and the youngest (22) of the post-war era. If the French took any consolation that at least it wasn’t another damn UK rider from Sky/Enios, that wasn’t apparent.

The French cling to the comforting belief that their failures in this race are what actually makes them special. In a way, it is similar to the longtime frustrations of the Cubs and Red Sox in baseball before they spoiled their unique narrative by actually winning the World Series.

The French come at it differently, however. To be successful in the last 34 years would have required, for the most part, defeating the monolithic Banesto teams of Miguel Indurain, the Deutsche Telekom teams of Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich, the U.S. Postal/Discovery teams of Lance Armstrong, the brief, ultimately disgraced reign of Alberto Contador, and then the powerhouse teams of Sky/Enios. Bernal is the fourth Sky/Enios winner in their stretch of domination, seamlessly following Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, and Thomas.

It is unfair to say that every year since Hinault, the French have been undone by teams that had large pharmaceutical edges as well as talent advantages, but it isn’t wildly unfair. Certainly true is that if the French teams, which have comparatively modest budgets, weren’t beaten entirely by doping, they were at least beaten by money-doping. There ain’t no salary cap in professional cycling, and even potentially great French riders never had deep teams to shepherd them up the hills and into the stratosphere of the sport.

So, France must settle for being valiant and honest in defeat, or whatever best passes for honest in cycling. Jean-Claude Killy, the champion ski racer, said the French don’t really like sports, but they love sportsmen. In Alaphilippe and Pinot, disappointing though their Tours became, they have two more sportsmen to put on memory’s shelf. The riders won the hearts of the nation, even though that’s all they won.

There’s always next year, of course, and the French will return to the Champs on the final Sunday like church-goers drawn to the altar. One day a Frenchman will face the congregation from the highest step. This is not the year, however, and the wait continues. If not this one, though, when?