Romain Bardet: The first part of the Tour de France is the hardest

Romain Bardet (Team DSM) returns to racing at the Tour de Suisse (June 11-18) this weekend and the Frenchman is aiming to be protagonist in the mountain stages before fine-tuning his form ahead of the Tour de France in July.

Bardet’s 2023 season has been hampered by illness, including a bout of COVID, but he has been resolutely consistent in terms of results, picking up top tens in Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and La Flèche Wallonne. A three-week block of altitude training spanned his calendar in late May and early June, and while he made his way to Switzerland ahead of Sunday’s stage 1, he spoke to GCN about his hopes for the weeks ahead.

“I’m looking forward to the race. It’s probably no secret that the Dauphiné is probably my favourite stage race on the calendar but going into the Tour de France, I think that Suisse might be the best option,” the Frenchman said.“We’ve been working really hard with a camp in Teide and now I’m just excited to be pinning a number on again. The timing is the main reason I’ve gone for Suisse over the Dauphiné.”

When it comes to the Tour de France and building form, timing is one of the key elements. Usually the first week of the Tour is littered with flat stages, but this year’s Grand Depart in Spain is one of the toughest in recent years. Stage 1 alone has 3,000m of climbing, while stage 5 from Pau to Laruns could blow the race apart. Stage 9 to Puy de Dôme, which comes just before the first rest day, could be even more significant in the race for the yellow jersey, and Bardet believes that a slow start will cost GC riders dearly if they arrive at the Tour undercooked.

“To be honest, I think that the first part of the Tour is the hardest,” he told GCN.“I’ve never seen that before in the Tour and that’s going to be a new experience. For me, more or less, the rankings after the first rest day will be similar to the ones that we’ll probably see in Paris at the end of the race. For sure, if you’re out of shape in the first week then you’ll struggle for a GC result. That’s why we wanted to concentrate on a big training load in May and early June and then head to Suisse before a short taper.

“The first week, on paper, looks so difficult, and if you’re not in top shape for the opening weekend then you might end up losing time. The first stage looks really hard and the race could explode there and then by the time we reach the Pyrenees and then stage 9 with Puy de Dôme, there could be a lot of fatigue. If you just take the first part as a one-week stage race, it’s one of the hardest week-long races of the year, and we’ll still have two weeks to go.”

In terms of the here and now, Bardet is focused on the Tour de Suisse, a race he’s never competed in during his long and illustrious career. Despite his modest interpretation of his season to date, the 32-year-old is motivated to leave a lasting impression on the summer ahead.

“Nothing has really gone my way this season,” he said. “I had a lot of trouble with sickness in almost all of my races. From the week before Paris-Nice, all the way through the end of Catalunya, where I had to pull out, I was never at 100 percent. Then I had really good shape in the Classics but then had COVID. I hope that my health is now good, and this is my favourite part of the year.

“My main hope for Suisse is to be really consistent in the hard mountain stages and to fight for those wins. Then I’ll see how I did with the time trials because they’ll be a big part of the final GC. I might be a bit below some of the faster time trialists but the main aim is to build on confidence in the mountain stages. I’ll take it day-by-day but I’ll focus on being competitive in the mountain stages.” 

Once Suisse is out of the way all attention will return to the Tour de France. The Team DSM leader finished sixth in 2022, despite a less than ideal preparation, and he knows that the battle for the podium in 2023 will be a hard-fought affair. More than placing inside the top five or top ten, Bardet is aiming to show his characteristics and leave an entertaining and aggressive impression on the three-week race.

“There will be a massive competition for the top five and the podium because there will be a lot of riders, maybe ten, who are behind Pogačar and Vingegaard who can be competitive. For me, I just want to be able to show myself and be a protagonist,” he said.

“I want to be one of the main actors of the race. I don’t want to finish the race in the top ten but just follow before I’m dropped at some point. That’s the last thing I want. I want to show myself, and with the team, be a real protagonist.”Bardet has forged a career as one of the most likeable and charismatic riders in the men’s WorldTour. However, at 32, he is admittedly closer to the end of his career than the start, and with compatriot Thibaut Pinot hanging up his wheels at the end of the year, Bardet - who is the same age as the Groupama-FDJ rider - is well aware that he only has a finite amount of racing ahead of him.

For now, the focus is entirely on the last 18 months of his current contract with DSM, while the future will likely depend on how the Frenchman fairs in stage races, and how motivated he is to prolong his time in the sport. Right now, the fire within Bardet burns bright, and the hope is that he arrives at the Tour in red hot form.

“To be honest, right now I’m not looking beyond 2024,” he said.“It’s so hard to be competitive and it takes so much from you but I still feel that I have some things to achieve in my career. I still have a year and a half left, and then we’ll see, but I’m very motivated for my remaining time with the team. I don’t know if next year will be my final season, it’s 50-50 and it really depends on how I perform and how I fit with my role and my standards. I’ll get the answers that I need in the next Grand Tours.”