At 33 and with an impressive series of victories and podium finishes in his palmarès, Romain Bardet may be tried and tested when it comes to fielding all manner of questions about bike racing. But during his pre-Giro d’Italia press conference on Friday, when he was told that Tadej pogačar had named him as a leading GC rival, not even as skilled a media practitioner as Bardet could seemingly hide a look of slight surprise.
Bardet does have previous form when it comes to top GC finishes, mind and he is clearly in good race condition. He has finished twice on the Tour de France podium, albeit in an increasingly distant 2016 and 2017, and only recently claimed his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège podium finish, behind Pogačar, as well as a top five overall in the Tour of the Alps. His Giro track record is anything but poor, too.
Seventh in the 2021 Giro, Bardet looked to be on for an even more impressive placing in 2022 had not sickness caused him to abandon just when he was lying fourth overall, a scant 14 seconds back on race leader Juanpe Lopez at the end of the second week. Should the French star be looking to set the record straight in 2024, then, nobody could blame him.
But as the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL leader told reporters, at least initially his main goal is to fight for mountain stage wins, and if that ends up bringing him a top GC placing, then so much the better.
“I’m going pretty well, I’m happy to be here, I’ve really missed the Giro,” Bardet said. “It’s the Grand Tour that suits me the most and we brought a team that’s ready for that challenge of fighting for stage wins. So we’ll see what it brings.
“I need to see how the race is playing out, for now, it’s best to focus on every mountain stage. If I go for them, then we’ll see what it could bring on GC.”
The question of retirement at the end of the season has been circulating in the Bardet camp. But rather than comment on that possibility, his recent top results, he said, had provided him with a “massive boost in motivation.”
“I was very keen over the winter to go back to how I’d approached the Giro in 2022, my main goal was to try to replicate that kind of shape," said Bardet.
“Getting some satisfying results in the Alps and Liège makes me believe I’m on the right path. A lot can happen, I need to see how I do in the mountains and then take the opportunities that will come in the third week.
“What I like most about the Giro is the way we can race it. I expect we’ll have really tough weather conditions in the third week, and hopefully, I can turn things around with some long breakaways. But in any case, what I like about this race is that things are a bit less ‘locked in’ than other races. There are more opportunities.”
As for how the Giro is structured, with the earliest major summit finish in the race on Sunday at Oropa since Mount Etna on stage 2 back in 1989, Bardet says that it’s important “to put it all into context. This is the opening weekend. The Giro will be decided in the third week. We might see some differences, but they’ll all be within reasonable amounts of time.”
Apart from flatly ruling out any chance of replicating his mountains classification victory in the Tour de France of 2019 in the Giro d’Italia this May, his initial idea he said, was “to find a little bit of space. I’m not thinking too much about what I can do in the time trials.”
Bardet’s overriding aim, then, is to complete his Grand Tour ‘set’ of stage wins, after taking the Vuelta a Espana stage win in 2021 and three in the Tour before that.
But as he pointed out, “We’ve got big targets on the flat stages, too” - and the presence of teammate and sprinter Fabio Jakobsen in the same press conference was a reminder of that.
“So I’ll take every mountain stage as an opportunity, rather than think about gaining or losing time,” Bardet concluded.
“I want to play my cards, but approach every day like a Classic.” As for whether that new approach on a build-up with marked similarity to 2022 pays off, Bardet's first test will come as soon as Sunday. But there will be plenty more in this year's Giro, too.
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the Giro d'Italia - including journalists reporting, breaking news and analysis on the ground from every stage of the race as it happens and more. Find out more.
