"When I saw an opportunity in the final, I went for it" Romain Bardet close to winning with a late attack

Younger Romain Bardet would look at the Giro d'Italia stage 13 and think 'that's something for me' with hilly parcours and a steep finish. But at the twilight of his career, the Frenchman had far more modest goals- Of course not.

In a moment of calm during the storm with ten kilometers to go, the 33-year-old Frenchman surprised everyone with a downhill attack and, if it wasn't for Alpecin-Deceuninck emerging to pace behind, maybe his daring move would've suceeded.

"It was a harder day than it looked on paper, with some super fast flat sections at the start and then a hilly section where the race exploded," Bardet confided with his immediate impressions after the stage. It was thanks INEOS Grenadiers raid at the technical hilly section with about 50 kilometers to go that the front of the race completely exploded.

When the situation calmed down a bit on the subsequent flat section, the peloton regrouped again, including Bardet who also didn't have a response to the attack of INEOS. And then came his turn in the descent from the penutimate climb and a Red Bull KM sprint.

When the GC favourites who had just sprinted for the bonus seconds began to look at each other in the descent, Bardet jumped after the opportunity to attack. "When I saw an opportunity in the final, I went for it," he said.

He was joined by Lidl-Trek's Mathias Vacek, but ultimately found himself just holding onto the Czech rider's wheel for the most part. Although it was a promising attack, the Alpecin-Deceuninck train neutralized their move at the first slopes of final ramp in Vicenza which marked the end of the shift for Bardet.

Looking back, he could only praise the work of his teammates who protected both Bardet and leader Max Poole through all the attacks and eventually it's only a 6-second loss for Poole in the standings. "As a team, we rode well together, looking after each other and staying in position," he concluded.