“We will go for it again tomorrow” - Romain Bardet moves up to fifth overall at the Tour of the Alps with strong result on stage 3

After making the front split on the opening stage of the Tour of the Alps, Romain Bardet kept himself in contention in the general classification on stage 3. The Team dsm-firmenich PostNL finished in fourth place on the stage, 38 seconds down on the winner and new overall leader Juan Pedro López, moving himself up to fifth place in the overall standings.

The riders faced wet conditions throughout the day, facing some of the coldest temperatures seen at a race in recent years at 5°C. Speaking to his team after the stage, Bardet said “it was a tough day out here with quite some bad and challenging weather conditions throughout the stage”.

On the team’s tactics for the stage, Bardet went on to say “we decided to ride and lead the bunch for most of the day, to try and make it hard. In the end, I couldn’t make any big difference, but I’m really happy with the team effort we did. We will go for it again tomorrow”.

Stage 4 will take the riders from Laives to Borgo Valsugana on a 141.3km-long stage that takes in several hard climbs including the cat-1 ascents of the Passo del Compet and Passo del Vetriolo. Bardet is 48 seconds down on López in the overall standings with two stages remaining.