Romain Bardet is looking forward to Puy de Dome stage in front of home fans: "That will be very special for me"

Fan favourite Romain Bardet set his eyes on Tour de France again this year, as the race will visit his home region to conquer the mighty Puy de Dome at the end of first racing block. The leader of Team DSM-Firmenich spoke to media two days before Grande Départ in Bilbao.

The Frenchman chose the Giro as his main goal in the past two years, which he looked back on. "It's also good to change things once in a while. I put everything on the Tour in first ten years of my career, but in 2021 I wanted to change that. At the Giro I could try something new, that's why I was very happy with it."

"It doesn't mean that we've done that for two years now, that I wanted to ignore Tour for the rest of my career," he continued on that subject. "With this year's course I could try Tour again, so I'm very happy with that."

By the course, he refers to the ascent to the Puy de Dome in his home region. "I was the first to be surprised when I heard we were going to do the Puy de Dome, it's been so long," Bardet immediately smiled. "It feels iconic to me, we're not going to get this chance that often. That will be very special for me."