"In the Tour, small sentences can get taken out of context" - Romain Bardet on psychological warfare Pogacar & Vingegaard endure during Maillot Jaune fight

Whilst the physical strength and endurance of a rider is undoubtedly a key factor in deciding the winner of a race like the Tour de France, mental strength and the ability to deal with such intense scrutiny for three weeks are also major points to note. According to the recently retired Romain Bardet, the likes of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard will be enduring psychological warfare in their fight for the Maillot Jaune.

"Definitely. Especially in the Tour, some small sentences can go so big. People like to take them out of their context," explains the 34-year-old Frenchman to TNT Sports, having himself contested for the Maillot Jaune for the majority of his career, finishing on the podium in both the 2016 and 2017 editions of his home Grand Tour.

To prove his point, Bardet points to one of the more memorable post-stage interviews of last year, when Remco Evenepoel called out Vingegaard, saying the Dane was lacking the "balls to race". "It’s not easy to have the right tone, the right speech straight after a race, you have been on your bike suffering for more than four or five hours in the heat, really testing your upper limits, sometimes getting dropped," says Bardet. "So you have all this mental strain, and when you react on emotion at the finish line, sometimes it can surpass what you are really thinking."

"Everyone involved in the race will look closely at it, so it can create tension. It is different with the mental battle, and how the stress of the environment can affect you," concludes the four-time Tour stage winner. "This is maybe not the nicest war to play, but it’s definitely also part of the race, and people love stories around the Tour de France, love the race in itself. It’s also how good you can be as a person dealing with every possible circumstance."