💛 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
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- I think the other side has said plenty, given comments about her reputation like what Renz said above. Perhaps this is her chance to speak up against that reputation? I have no idea but her comments seem pretty human, even if each person has their own version of the story.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Give her a team built around her with no competing leaders, like Pogacar has at UAE or Vingegaard has at Visma (seeing how Roglic left), and I wonder how Vollering would do. She’s already so good, and a team dedicated to her could make her even better.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Those injuries, an ability to manage pain and push himself, probably a load of TUEs to help him get back from an awful moment, and competing that hard without the long exercise base that was the norm - no wonder he was exhausted. We’ve now had two consecutive seasons of the second place rider having an injury that interrupts training, and it shows to what level their bodies are tuned for the insane task of winning the Tour. I certainly hope both (and their teams!) are healthy next year. It would be a first, after 4 years.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Winners seem to be like this. Win or lose, it is always on to the next thing. They don’t celebrate the big win, they don’t worry about the painful loss. They move on. It’s an amazing skill. But to be able to ride (and win) while not being able to walk? That’s a level of pain management that boggles my mind. Of course they have it, given what they put their bodies through, but it’s just crazy.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Poor Demi. But she behaves the same way when riding for the national team. Bring me my tiny violin.Renz24-11-2024
- good pointsmij24-11-2024
- Yes, please tell us based on your superior expertise about why JVs training and race schedule is wrong 🧐Crashjames24-11-2024
- I'd like to hear what the other side has to say.mij24-11-2024
- Rules are very different from country to country and evolve with time. At one point I couldn’t even give my son my nationality because being unmarried, you’d have to register at least 3 months before the birth, a time when many people know neither the name or sex, and actually, no-one even knows if the birth will take place. In England there is now a kid with the wrong sex on his birth certificate as mistakes (even if by an administration) can no longer be corrected. I just had a 3rd child, we discovered a bump on his head at 2 weeks that wasn’t there 24h before, we ended up at the police accused of child abuse and about to have him taken from us due to staff incompetence and inexperience. Luckily a pediatric neurosurgeon has now confirmed this is not so uncommon after natural childbirth without instruments but most medical employees aren’t informed of it so automatically accuse parents of negligence/lying whatever. We discovered an association that already helped over 1000 wrongly accused couples (just those who found the association in just one country). I almost got arrested in one country for forgery after trying to convert my driver’s license as they thought I must have tampered the dates to get it aged 17 which isn’t possible for them. I can’t access half official services because the online forms are not set up to accept foreign phone number as data but a number is obligatory. That’s just a quick start, anyone who’s ever had to move internationally will confirm, there’s very little that’s not done differently elsewhere than “at home” The world is full of bureaucratic shit destroying society.Mistermaumau23-11-2024
- Bruyneel is not a person you take honesty or moral advice from.Sweep23-11-2024