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Culture<\/a><\/p>\n Cycling\u2019s most famous pig disappeared from the podium this year \u2013 and nobody seemed keen to explain why.<\/p>\n Mathilde L’Azou for Team Cofidis<\/p>\n There are some things you come to rely on in life: death, taxes, a podium pig at Tro-Bro L\u00e9on<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The French 1.Pro-ranked race is a bit like an underground Paris-Roubaix in vibe, transplanted to the opposite side of the country and replacing cobbled sectors with dirt farm tracks. But while the cobblestone trophy of Roubaix is one of the sport\u2019s most beloved, it\u2019s got nothing on the prize that awaits the first Breton finisher at Tro-Bro L\u00e9on: a living, squealing piglet.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A dispatch from the Tro-Bro L\u00e9on pig<\/p>\n Cycling\u2019s strangest trophy shares some thoughts.<\/p>\n As you can probably expect, this particular trophy has long been a source of some fascination at Escape Collective Towers. I\u2019ve imagined a day in the life of the podium pig<\/a>, hoped that the piglets become pets rather than pork, and found out where the most recent one ended up<\/a>. Last week, I looked at the calendar, saw Tro-Bro L\u00e9on, and thought \u2018well there\u2019s a story for next week\u2019. <\/p>\n But this year, something was different. There was no podium pig\u00a0\u2013 or, more accurately, there was a representation of one. Look, here\u2019s a picture of leading Breton, Alexis Renard (Cofidis) standing there holding it:<\/p>\n It\u2019s not trying to snuffle out snacks in his hand. It\u2019s not squirming its little trotters about. It\u2019s just a wooden pig. A fine podium prize<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0cute, even\u00a0\u2013 but not the same.<\/p>\n On the search for why, I turned to my friend and yours: the internet. But that yielded few immediate or definitive answers. Someone on Reddit claimed<\/a>, with the typical confidence of an anonymous internet user, that the living pig had been substituted out just for the podium ceremony, and that Renard would have a photo op with his new pet away from the noise and chaos. Jez Cox on commentary, meanwhile, suggested that the pig was swapped with the farmer in exchange for cash.\u00a0A classic pig pro quo. <\/p>\n Neither of these excuses sat well with me, seeing as the podium pig is a central feature \u2013\u00a0maybe the central feature\u00a0\u2013 of the race. It\u2019s on the promotional posters, in the artwork produced showing the winner, and every single year in recent memory there has been an abundance of social media clips of the pig from the winner\u2019s team and from the event organisers alike. In the case of Valentin Madouas\u2019 prize pig, L\u00e9on, he\u2019s an occasional feature on his Instagram page, too:\u00a0<\/p>\n So, what gives? The obvious answer was that the event organiser \u2013\u00a0Amaury Sports Organisation, who you might remember from other smash-hit bicycle races like \u2018the Tour de France\u2019\u00a0\u2013 realised that there was at least some segment of the viewing public that was broadly not on board with the industrial meat complex\u00a0\u2013 or, specifically, felt that it was a bit fucky to give away a farm animal to a professional athlete without most of the necessary conditions or temperament to care for it (Madouas aside, obv. We’ll also give a pass to Tom Steels and his Tour de France horse<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n All of that might have explained the initial silence from the ASO press officer, who did not acknowledge my request of a week prior to the event:\u00a0<\/p>\n “Is it possible to find out everything I can about the Tro Bro Leon piglet that will be given away this weekend? How is it selected, does it have a name, what are the attributes of this pig in particular, is it possible to talk to the farmer\/owner?”<\/p>\n But it probably didn\u2019t explain why my shorter, blunter follow-up message on Monday (\u201cAre the Tro Bro Leon pigs gone? Just a wooden statue now?\u201d) also went unanswered. Or, when I escalated my request to a more senior ASO press officer, why she also didn\u2019t respond. No, this felt calculated.\u00a0<\/p>\n This post is for paying subscribers only Already have an account? Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udc4dYep![\"Iain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Iain-Treloar-150x150.jpg\")
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