Bardet cautious but confident that opening week will make differences: "For sure there will be some real action"

Team DSM have so far had a safe race at the Giro d'Italia, with Romain Bardet and Thymen Arensman racing to expectations at the end of the first six stages. Today a new chapter in the race starts, which will present a different challenge for the riders.

After the ascent to Mount Etna, in which both Bardet and teammate Thymen Arensman arrived safely in the GC group, Bardet told L'Équipe: "This was a crucial stage for me. The day after a transfer is always a bit hard to predict, and you don’t know how the legs will be. But it worked out, and we’ve got a good team here too."

After his win at the Tour of the Alps, the Frenchman comes as one of the favourites to finish on the podium of the Corsa Rosa and so far so good for DSM who have committed their efforts in keeping their main option safe in the flat stages. He currently sits in 10th place in the overall classification, 22 seconds down on Simon Yates who is the first of the real overall classification contenders.

"The build up to the Giro was good, so I was expecting that I’d feel good right from the start which seems to be the case. So we need to be patient and stay safe and wait for our moment," Bardet adds. The first week presents some complicated challenges, however with quite some naturality the brutal stages of the third week make riders cautious over how much they invest in the opening week. Bardet has for six times finished on the Top10 of a Grand Tour - twice on the Tour de France podium - and his experience will be crucial ahead of the coming weeks. 

For sure it’s good to start a race like this, but there’s a lot more to come. If there’s a lot of fighting on stage 7 [to Potenza] there could be some gaps, but on stage 9 to the Blockhaus, for sure there will be some real action," he concluded. Inevitably, as the Appennines draw closer, the GC riders prepare for the first crucial stages of the race.