“The only problem” – Was this the weakness that prevented both Bardet and Pinot from Tour de France glory?

Next week’s Critérium du Dauphiné will mark the final road race of Romain Bardet’s professional career. The Frenchman, who turned pro in 2012 and spent much of his career burdened with expectation, will say goodbye to the peloton on Sunday 15 June atop Le Plateau du Mont-Cenis.

Just a week ago, Bardet finished the Giro d’Italia, his last Grand Tour, where he came agonisingly close to completing a career set of stage wins in all three major tours. But, true to the pattern of his career, it was a near miss.

Now, has someone found out the key weakness that ultimately undid Bardet and Pinot's (as well as the entirety of France) Tour de France dreams?

As cycling journalist Hugo Coorevits told WielerFlits, Bardet's time at the top has long been shaped by tension between immense potential and the limits of his skillset. “The curtain falls on Sunday 15 June on Le Plateau du Mont-Cenis in the Alps. There Romain Bardet will end a professional career that began in 2012. It was a career that did not fully bring what his compatriots, and he himself, had hoped for when he made his debut in 2013 as a 22-year-old with a fifteenth place in la grande boucle.”

Coorevits recalls first encountering Bardet at the 2013 Amstel Gold Race, where the young Frenchman made a bold early break and was only caught nine kilometres from the finish. “I walked up to him and said: ‘I think you have a great career ahead of you with the pros.’ ‘Do you really mean that?’ he asked shyly. I nodded in agreement.”

France believed in Bardet just as it had begun to believe in Thibaut Pinot, his contemporary and rival. “The French media feasted on the duel between Pinot and Bardet. They thought out loud that a variation of Jacques Anquetil versus Raymond Poulidor was in the making,” said Coorevits. But the comparison never truly materialised. “The only problem was that they were both inferior time trialists.”

Tour organisers adjusted the route in response to the climbing strengths of riders like Bardet, reducing time trial kilometres and introducing climbing chronos. It worked, up to a point. In 2016, Bardet finished second overall after a dramatic stage win at Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc. A year later, he was just 23 seconds behind Chris Froome before the final time trial in Marseille, only to collapse and lose two minutes. “Suddenly Bardet was 'on foot' and lost two minutes to Froome… He rode so dramatically bad that he also lost second place to Rigoberto Uran.”

That stage may have been the moment the yellow jersey truly slipped from his grasp.

By 2019, doubts were mounting. “On the eve of the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2019, I told him during an interview: ‘Abandon that classification. Aim for one-day races.’ He looked at me meaningfully, but remained silent. The yoke of the Tour was starting to weigh heavily and the expectations of the AG2R team management were becoming too high.”

Bardet’s move to Team DSM in 2021 revitalised him. Fatherhood, COVID, and a change in scenery offered perspective that he clearly needed. “The man with a master's degree in business management had a lot of time to think and decided to change air after nine professional years at AG2R La Mondiale.”

Under Iwan Spekenbrink’s management, Bardet was given freedom. “Spekenbrink simply told him: ‘You don’t have to win. We just want to see the best version of you. In the end, it’s just a race.’ Bardet raced freely again. Old school. As an attacker, with a lot of racing insight.”

That freedom paid off in his final Tour de France last summer. “On the first day of his eleventh and final Tour de France, his dream came true. His young teammate Frank van den Broek, with whom he had escaped, granted him the victory and the yellow jersey.”

Bardet later admitted to L’Équipe that he had never truly felt like a Grand Tour general classification rider. “Another place in the top ten of a grand tour gave me little satisfaction either.”