Even after Ventoux breakthrough, Valentin Paret-Peintre stays immune to GC pressure: "Not interesting"
When a French climber reaches the summit, it often comes with incredibly high expectations. Not so for 25-year-old Valentin Paret-Peintre. He did win the prestigious Tour de France stage atop Mont Ventoux in 2025, but pressure? He doesn’t feel any at all. Competing for general classifications doesn’t interest the young Frenchman from Soudal Quick-Step, Paret-Peintre tells WielerFlits on camera from the Tour of Oman.
In Oman, Paret-Peintre had a dream start for his Belgian team a year ago, with a stage victory on Green Mountain. Back then, we saw a fairly reserved young man. That has changed now. "It was an important year for me. That day on Mont Ventoux changed not only my career but also my life. People don’t talk about anything else when they meet me. All I hear is Ventoux, Ventoux, Ventoux."
"So I’ll have to show something new to make them stop talking about it," he laughs. "This is the season for confirmation for me, but I’m not afraid of that. I already see some interesting spots in the Tour de France route that really spark the imagination. Think of Alpe d’Huez and Plateau de Solaison, near where I live. I’ll have to show something again. Which should be possible, because I still feel myself improving every year."
Different mindset
To explain this, Paret-Peintre looks back at his move from the French Decathlon AG2R team — where he parted ways with his brother Aurélien — to Soudal Quick-Step. "Ultimately, what you do with each team is a bit the same. It’s all cycling, but the focus is often a bit different. When I joined the team, I changed coaches and that gave me something new."
Additionally, Decathlon CMA CGM still hopes to win the Tour de France within five years. They are building a team around their young star Paul Seixas. "At Soudal Quick-Step I find the mindset more interesting. They don’t put pressure on general classifications, but they want to go for stage wins. That fits very well with my own mentality. There’s really a match. From day one, they showed me a lot of confidence without imposing pressure. That really helped me."
Without Remco
However, at the time the team had a big leader in Remco Evenepoel. "That’s true, but for me that wasn’t necessarily a negative thing either. If I don’t feel strong enough myself, I also like working for a leader. With Remco in the team, you knew there was a good chance of winning. And even in the team time trials, he made sure we didn’t lose minutes. Sometimes that made it easier having him there."
"After his departure, the ‘mindset’ shifted even more in the other direction," the Frenchman believes. "We now want to win as many stages as possible in the grand tours and perform in the Flemish classics. But that’s normal. In stage races, we no longer have anyone who can challenge the likes of Pogi and Jonas Vingegaard. So this is a better way to approach it."
Paret-Peintre himself, as he emphasizes several times during the conversation, absolutely does not see himself in the role of GC contender in a grand tour. "No, that’s something completely different from what I do. I don’t want that. If I finish tenth or twelfth in a classification, that’s not interesting for me or for the team either. Then you’d better go for beautiful stages that people will remember. We’ll see where that takes me."
