"Doing nothing, just waiting for others to crack before you... No" - Romain Bardet admits he's done riding GC at Grand Tours
Cycling
With Romain Bardet now having 16 Grand Tours in his legs, the latest of which saw him finish 9th at the 2024 Giro d'Italia, the Frenchman has revealed he is now completely done riding for general classification in the three-week races.
“The UAE train really crushed me on the last mountain stage, I really gave up," the 33-year-old, two-time podium finisher at the Tour de France reflects of his Giro d'Italia performance in conversation with L'Equipe. "Geraint Thomas, what he did again in the Giro (3rd at the age of 38 ed.), I am incapable of doing it. Do nothing in the Giro, zero initiative, just waiting for others to crack before you... No."
With a total of eight Grand Tour top-10s now on his palmares, Bardet somewhat understandably considers another relatively worthless. As such, the Frenchman is keen to change tact in future and opt a more stage hunting strategy. "Making a top 5 while following all the time while being on the verge of fainting, I feel like crap. I've done it too much: I've finished so many Grand Tours. the top 10 exhausted and without much satisfaction... A podium is different, but for another place, I prefer to burn my wings on one stage and try again to win one behind," he explains.
Bardet won't have to wait long for another crack at a Grand Tour, with the three-time Tour de France stage winner returning to his home Grand Tour next month. "The Tour is well laid out, the hard stages are seperated, that should give me the recovery time to be good on the days when I need it. I checked five, six stages. If everything goes well, I'll maybe have three opportunities to win," he previews. "For me, it's not a reward to go to the Tour, it's that we have something to do there. And I know it's still possible: when we see what Kwiatkowski, Woods, Wout Poels did last year... Physically, I'm also capable of it."
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024