Saturday May 4, 2024 at 8:13 PM
Romain Bardet was – alongside Thymen Arensman – one of the big losers of the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia. Just over twenty kilometers from the finish, on the Colle Maddalena, we saw the Frenchman from DSM-Firmenich drop out.
In the end, the French leader of the team lost a good minute to Tadej Pogacar and fifteen seconds less to the rest of the favorites.”On the climb, Romain gave us the message via the race radio that he was not feeling too well, that was the first what we heard from him,” said sports director Matt Winston in a press release.
“Chris (Hamilton, ed.) and Kevin (Vermaerke, ed.) had first positioned themselves at the front of the peloton to put Romain in position, but waited for him. This ensured that we were able to properly limit the damage. He had dropped quite far at one point, but our boys rode hard in the chase.”
New plan?
“Riders are human, it is normal that they have good and bad days. Today was a bad day, something you wouldn’t hope to experience on opening day, but it is what it is. We still have three weeks to go and a lot of riding to be done. I think the rankings will be shaken up in the next three weeks. If we just make progress now and don’t lose more time, then that’s good. Otherwise we will have to switch to looking for stage victories.”
