Bernard Hinault is a French former professional cyclist who won the Tour de France five times — in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985. He also won 28 individual Tour stages, three editions of the Giro d'Italia and two Vueltas a España. Known in French as le Blaireau — “the Badger” — Hinault remains the most recent French winner of the Tour.
Those numbers make him more than a home hero. Hinault could win stage races, time trials, mountain stages and the hardest one-day races. He was the 1980 world road champion, won Liège–Bastogne–Liège twice and, despite openly disliking Paris–Roubaix, won it in the rainbow jersey in 1981.
Why was Bernard Hinault called the Badger?
Le Blaireau translates literally as “the Badger”. The nickname became shorthand for Hinault's combative public image and refusal to yield once a race became a contest of will. Accounts differ on precisely who first attached it to him and why, so the safest historical claim is also the useful one: it was his established nickname during his career, not a later label invented by fans.
How many Tours de France did Hinault win?
Hinault won five Tours de France: 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985. That puts him in the five-win group with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain and, after the 2026 Tour, Tadej Pogačar. Hinault is still the last French rider to have won the general classification.
His Tour record also contains 28 individual stage wins. The last came in the penultimate-day time trial at Saint-Étienne in 1986, when he finished second overall to his La Vie Claire teammate Greg LeMond.
The 1980 Tour: a knee injury, not a lost sixth title
Hinault started the 1980 Tour as defending champion and was wearing yellow when persistent knee pain forced him to withdraw before the first major Pyrenean stage. Joop Zoetemelk went on to win the race.
It is reasonable to say the injury removed Hinault from a position of strength. It is not accurate to count 1980 as a sixth victory he “should” have won: the race still had its decisive mountain stages ahead, and an unfinished Tour is not a result. Hinault recovered to win the world championship road race at Sallanches later that summer.
Ten Grand Tours, across all three races
Hinault won every Giro d'Italia he entered: 1980, 1982 and 1985. He also won the Vuelta a España in 1978 and 1983. Add those five titles to his five Tours and the total is ten Grand Tour victories from 13 starts, with two further second places.
Only a small group of riders has won all three men's Grand Tours. Hinault did it in an era when the Vuelta was held in spring: his first Grand Tour was the 1978 Vuelta, which he won before taking his first Tour later that year.
Hinault and Greg LeMond in 1985 and 1986
The most disputed chapter of Hinault's Tour career is his relationship with Greg LeMond. LeMond supported Hinault's fifth victory in 1985. Hinault said he would support the American in 1986, but then attacked repeatedly, took the yellow jersey and continued to race aggressively after LeMond emerged as the stronger rider.
The pair crossed the Alpe d'Huez finish line together, hand in hand. LeMond ultimately won by 3 minutes 10 seconds; Hinault finished second and maintained that his attacks had been designed to harden the race and help his teammate. LeMond's interpretation was far less comfortable. The official Tour record establishes the results, but intent remains contested — and the two riders' perspectives should not be collapsed into one tidy version. Hear LeMond's own account in our Greg LeMond interview on Hinault.
Was Hinault a model of periodised training?
This page originally presented Hinault as proof that selective racing and planned peaking explain his success. That is a coaching interpretation, not a fact established by the race record. His calendar actually included Grand Tours, stage races, world championships, Monuments and other classics, and the surviving sources do not justify a neat contrast in which Merckx “raced everything” while Hinault simply picked a few targets.
There is still a sound training lesson here, but it comes from modern coaching rather than biography: an amateur with limited recovery should identify priority events, build toward them and plan easier periods. Use Hinault as inspiration for competitive intent, not as scientific evidence for a periodisation model.
Career legacy
Hinault turned professional in 1975 and retired in 1986. His record combines five Tours, three Giri, two Vueltas, a world road title and major one-day victories including Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. That range is the clearest reason he belongs in the first rank of road cycling history.
His exact place in an all-time ranking is opinion. His palmarès is not: five Tours, 28 Tour stages and ten Grand Tours, achieved before retiring at 32.