After scoring the fourth Tour de France stage win of his career in addition to his first-ever maillot jaune, Romain Bardet hailed the stage 1 ride achieved by himself and his teammate Frank van den Broek as "pure cycling".
The DSM-Firmenich PostNL pairing held off a charging chase group in Rimini to score a one-two at the conclusion of the hilly 206km stage. Van den Broek had raced in the day's breakaway since the opening 20km, while Bardet made his move 50km from the finish as the early move was disintegrating.
The Frenchman, racing his final Tour de France ahead of a switch to gravel next summer, joined Van den Broek plus Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and king of the mountain Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) at the head of the race before the DSM pair pushed on alone to the finish.
"It was just pure cycling," Bardet said in the post-race press conference, resplendent in his yellow jersey. "We are just two mates on the bike riding as fast as we can and going through pain.
"We knew it would be hard in the last 15km, but we got more confident as we went further and further."
The duo – Bardet the veteran racing his 11th Tour and Van den Broek a neo-pro beginning his first – raced over the day's final climb in the micro-state of San Marino with 25km to go with almost two minutes on the chasing peloton.
The group was led previously by UAE Team Emirates before Visma-Lease A Bike and Lidl-Trek took up the mantle, gradually dragging the escapees closer and closer and setting up a grandstand finale on the Adriatic coast.
In the end, as Bardet and Van den Broek headed under the flamme rouge, they clung onto a 10-second lead – in the event, it was all they needed to come away with a famous win.
The pair crossed the line pointing at one another, a memorable display of teamwork and togetherness on the Lungomare Giuseppe di Vittorio of which the famed Italian trade unionist leader would have been proud.
"You keep looking back and see the peloton coming but you don't really have time to think about anything. It's a total effort," Bardet said. "It brings so much more because it was the only way we could do it today. I say we because he won as much as me today. It's just the way we wanted to race here."
Bardet said he, Van den Broek, and Warren Barguil had been the three DSM men permitted to go and fight in the breakaway on the opening stage.
He had nothing but praise for his young Dutch teammate, who had enough left in the tank to work hard on the final run to the finish after his early breakaway companions had long since left the front of the race.
"It's the first day of his first ever Tour de France and he's one of the three guys with Warren and me to have permission to be in the break today and to see if we could score some points and maybe go all the way," he said.
"It's crazy to be the strongest from the initial break and it was the confirmation that we could go all the way to the finish. I think I wouldn't have done it without him, so it was a collective victory."
Bardet had spent approximately 140 fewer kilometres on the attack compared to Van den Broek, but he picked his moment with precision, in his own words following his instincts – something that, combined with DSM's winning tactical plan, worked to perfection.
"It's an unthinkable scenario that became a reality," Bardet said. "I followed my instincts by attacking. I must conclude that when I attack, I race from the heart and that racing by instinct works out well."
