💛 It took 196 stages for @romainbardet to finally wear the Yellow Jersey. 💛 Il aura fallu attendre 196 étapes pour que Romain Bardet porte enfin le Maillot Jaune. #TDF2024
"That could be deliberate, because it's a Frenchman who rides" - Sep Vanmarcke believes help from race motos was key for Romain Bardet's Tour de France stage win
CyclingSunday, 30 June 2024 at 15:31
Starting with a bang, the 2024 Tour de France opened with a thrilling finale to stage 1, with Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL duo Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek holding off the peloton to take the win and the first Maillot Jaune of the race.
Despite the narrow margin the leading duo held and the frantic nature of the chase from the peloton behind, the time gap was held relatively stable by Bardet and Van den Broek all the way until the finish line. According to five-time Tour de France competitor, turned Israel - Premier Tech sports director, Sep Vanmarcke, the only reason for this was help from the camera motorbikes.
"It's not one bike, but a whole group," the 35-year-old Belgian explains of his belief in conversation with Sporza post-stage. More than just the help from the motos, Vanmarcke believes there may have been a French conspiracy to aid one of the darlings of the nation's cycling in Bardet. "That could be deliberate, because it's a Frenchman who rides ahead."
"Then it's very unfortunate if you can't close the gap from the peloton. It's a problem in cycling that's difficult to get out of," the Israel - Premier-Tech sports director continues. "Six men chasing from the peloton against two at the front, that's something you can never achieve as attackers. Maybe those engines were a factor that played a role."
By the time Wout van Aert led home the remainder of the peloton in third place, just five seconds were separating the leading Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL duo and the chasing pack. Would it have been different if not for the added aerodynamic benefit of the race motorbikes and camera motorbikes, we will never know. But one thing is for certain, the efforts of both Bardet and Van den Broek cannot be questioned and were rightly rewarded.
Read also
claps 0visitors 551
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Oh, and yes: I am no psychiatrist/psychologist, but Bruyneel and Texas Turd are both sociopaths. It goes well beyond "protect my world and anyone would" that is the usual zeitgeist of their bullshit. No normal person has Bob Roll go at Greg Lemond with an audio recording device at Ron Keifel's bike shop...for example.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Funnier: this website keeps giving credo to their ramblings. In this case, why in any possible way would Boonen want to create a fantasy world to attach himself to these two clowns when more likely he would want to forget he was even there? Laughable.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- A sociopath is an informal term used to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a chronic pattern of disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- 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