With his victory on Mont Ventoux, Valentin Paret-Peintre has proven that he is no longer just the xxs jersey of the group and can restore luster to the Soudal-Quick Step team, which was considered too weak to support a rider of Remco Evenepoel's caliber and has already won 4 stages in this Tour.

Valentin is perhaps the lightest rider in the group and for this reason, some call him the xxs rider, because at 178 centimeters tall, he weighs just 52 kg, a full 6 kilograms less than Jonas Vingegaard.

For Valentin, winning on Mont Ventoux was a matter of pride, because in this Tour de France, he and his teammates have often been considered too low-level to support Evenepoel, and many said the team's weakness would compromise the Belgian champion's performance.

That's precisely why Valentin Paret-Peintre had to win on the Bald Mountain, where only the strongest have won with honor. After crossing the finish line, the Frenchman exclaimed some colorful words to emphasize his and his teammates' skill, and immediately after getting off his bike, he went to hug his teammate Ilan Van Wilder. "Go to hell, we won on Mont Ventoux" – Valentin Paret-Peintre exclaimed right after dismounting – "In this team, there is a culture of winning".

Paret-Peintre joined Soudal-Quick Step this year, and in his career, this Mont Ventoux victory is his third as a professional, after winning the tenth stage at the Giro in 2024 and his victory last February at the Tour of Oman.

"Even when we're not the favorites, we try to give our maximum to try and raise our arms at the end. We raced like crazy to give the breakaway a chance to reach the finish line. Pascal Eenkhoorn did an incredible job downhill, then Ilan immediately made himself available as soon as I told him I had good legs to try and win".

Arriving last winter at Soudal Quick-Step from Decathlon AG2R, where his older brother Aurélien still rides, he was not supposed to be at the start of the Tour de France because his schedule was built around the Giro, which he couldn't race. "My program was built around the Giro, where I was supposed to help Landa. Instead, I fell during the last stage of Tirreno-Adriatico. At first, I thought it wasn't too serious, just bearable pain. But things got worse during the Tour of Catalonia. It was a real disappointment to have to give up the Giro d'Italia, but I tried to turn the page and reorganize myself for the Tour de France. The team had decided that I would help Remco".

Valentin Paret-Peintre was born in Savoy, and Mont Ventoux is far from his home, but it's the mountain he has always dreamed of winning on.
"Mont Ventoux is a unique place for me, it's one of the symbols of the Tour de France. It's very far from my home, so it was never part of my training routes. I now ride for a Belgian team, and when you ask a Belgian the name of an important mountain for the Tour, they almost always say Mont Ventoux. Now I've won on this mountain, and it's incredible because perhaps no one would have ever bet on this victory of mine. I'm very thin and perhaps inspire little confidence. I've tried many times to gain weight and never succeeded because that's just how I'm made. I'm thin, very thin, but I won on Mont Ventoux."