Warren Barguil rolls over to the area behind the podium at the Shanghai Criterium, where the prizes and paraphernalia are piled up, checks over his shoulder, and stuffs a miniature yellow airhorn into his jersey pocket. The post-race ceremonies done and dusted, he sneaks up on a huddle of ASO blazers and almost deafens them, laughing in delight as he rides off towards the race HQ hotel, where later that night – or rather deep into the following morning – he’ll do the same on almost every floor of the five-star establishment.
“We have only one life. It’s not a computer game where you get 10 lives. You just need to enjoy it,” Barguil says of his free-spirited, slightly mischievous streak.
His outlook on life, he explains, changed markedly in the aftermath of the collision with a car that nearly killed him and six teammates in January of last year.
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“Since the accident I really have a different vision of things,” he says. “Cycling was already my passion, but my life is not only cycling, like some people. If it’s working, good, but if it’s not working… I take a look at what it is, but it’s not the end of my life. If cycling stops tomorrow, or in one year or two years, then that’s how it is. I have a life.”
If Barguil’s view of the world changed nearly two years ago, his view of his profession changed this year. The Tour de France, specifically, seemed to represent a seminal moment in the Frenchman’s career, a whirlwind three weeks of liberation and self-discovery. Freed from the shackles of targeting the general classification, he attacked at will in the mountains and by Paris had two stage victories and the polka-dot jersey in the bag, as well as a shock transfer from Sunweb to Fortuneo-Oscaro as good as finalised.
It would be unfair to say that Barguil’s career had gone off the rails since he burst onto the professional scene in 2013 with two stage wins at the Vuelta a España, but the fact that his two victories at the Tour were his first since that race does tell a story. Perhaps you could say that he had faded into greyscale, and that in July we saw him back in screaming colour.
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