Saturday, June 29, 2024 | Updated 06/30/2024 00:16h.
Comment
Copy link
X (formerly Twitter)
Telegram
Threads
When Bardet finished second in the 2016 Tour, he was 26 years old and had braces on his teeth and France was upon him, because, after many years of drought, relieved only by sporadic showers, a cyclist from his country showed signs of being able to win his race. The following year he showed up at the final time trial, in Marseille, just 26 seconds behind Chris Froome, with the responsibility on his shoulders. It weighed too much on him, he had a bad day, gave up second place to Rigoberto Urán and finished third. He would never again stand on the podium.
Now 33 years old, he announced before the Tour that this would be his last time. Since he did not want to turn his participation into a daily farewell tribute, he will leave cycling next season, after racing the Dauphiné, his favorite competition, but without the most important race of the year on the horizon. He said more things. For example, that “it is the first time that he faced the Tour without any general ambition. On Saturday, in the first stage, he may lose twenty minutes. “I no longer have the desire or legs to compete for three weeks.”
France never forgot him, even though he left the podium. «They always supported me from the road. One of my regrets is not having been able to give more in return. On the way to Rimini he heard the shouts of encouragement again, the clamor from the ditches, although those who cheered him on were not French, but Italians. He did not lose twenty minutes, as he fantasized days before the Tour began, but quite the opposite: he won, with the invaluable help of his promising teammate Van den Broek and wears yellow for the first time in his career, a gift in the Tour to whom he says goodbye, perhaps too young for what is fashionable. A happy beginning to the end, which doesn’t happen much in cycling, and even less so as the stage unfolded. Cyclists are used to swimming to die on the shore. Bardet and Van den Broek emerged from the water raising their arms.
De Fellini in Pantani
The 1999 Giro also came to Rimini, and the journalists were allowed the luxury of staying at the Grand Hotel, where Fellini filmed Amarcord. These were times of wine and roses in an Italy euphoric over Marco Pantani’s successes. The hotel, like the city, had an air of decadent elegance, like many tourist places on the Adriatic coast before summer has arrived; large suites with a lounge and dressing room, poorly lit, doors that did not quite fit. A certain neglect was compensated for by the history behind it. But none of this mattered because Pantani was at the top and everything looked very good. But things went wrong. Five years later, the Pirate was found dead, after months of depression, in the Le Rose hotel, a second-rate establishment, on the same seafront where the Grand Hotel stands.
Rimini will never completely get rid of that stigma. It went from being the city of Fellini to that of Pantani, whose memories flew over all the kilometers of the first stage of the Tour, which began by honoring a righteous among nations, Gino Bartali, twice winner of the Tour ten years apart and one World War in between, and ended remembering Marco Pantani. And since the start was in Florence, perhaps passing through the Basilica of Santa Croce, Mark Cavendish, whose sole objective was to surpass Eddy Merckx, with whom he shares the record for stage victories (34), was affected Stendhal syndrome, because like the French writer, he had dizziness and sweating, he even vomited on the bicycle, but since he is a veteran and knows a lot about these things, he did not allow himself to succumb to being out of control, and he came second to last at 39 Bardet minutes.
“We have suffered a lot”
But the Tour is not measured by what happens in the queue, but by what happens in the head, and there, in a very hard stage for a first day, UAE and Visma controlled, without wanting to give everything from the beginning. When fifty kilometers from the finish line, after overcoming several passes, the distance between a group of escapees and the peloton narrowed, Romain Bardet launched himself into the impossible. Pedal by pedal he approached the lead on the ascent to San Leo, and with his partner Van den Broek doing an impeccable job, he distanced Madouas, his companion. There were 25 kilometers left, two of them uphill, where they kept their distance from the peloton, another ten downhill from San Marino, and the rest on the flat, on wide roads and against the wind. “We have suffered a lot.”
But perhaps the strength of the arriving teams was fair after a tough route, and although Lidl and Education First began to stretch the peloton, the calculations did not add up. At 12.5 kilometers the advantage of the adventurers was 1.04m; at two kilometers, barely 17 seconds, but that helped two well-matched cyclists, who entered the finish line with their arms raised, celebrating an unexpected victory together. “I feel very liberated,” says Bardet. Perhaps the first time since France came upon him in 2016. By the way, the second in the peloton sprint was Tadej Pogacar, warning to sailors.
Comment Report a bug
2024-06-29 22:16:08
#Romain #Bardet #begins #farewell #cycling #style
