He French Romain Bardet, winner of the first stage of the 202 Tour de France and, for the first time, yellow jersey, he assured that this victory represented the “summit” of his career and confirmed his intention to retire from cycling after the next Dauphiné , which was his last participation in the gala round.
“It doesn’t change anything, on the contrary, for me it’s a dream to one day wear the yellow jersey, I reached it and I see it as a sign, like I reached the top of my career,” said the DSM cyclist .
At 33 years old, the runner-up in the 2016 Tour and third in 2017, He added his fourth victory of the race, at the end of a breakaway in which he was joined by his Dutch teammate Frank van den Broek, whom he thanked for his help and assured that “it’s a shared yellow jersey”.
“I still can’t believe it, it’s something incredible, I think I couldn’t have dreamed anything better than this, to finally wear the yellow jersey and finish the stage with a teammate,” he said.
Their adventure was about to fail at the last moment, because the platoon came in force and they were not able to surprise them for 5 seconds.
“We didn’t program it, I tried it because I saw that the peloton was affected by the heat and I was training for a month to run in high temperatures. And it worked,” highlighted the French.
“I’m happy because today I ran the way I like,” said the Frenchman, who acknowledged that until now “every time I came to the Tour it was like a tunnel, with all the pressure that came with it.”
“This time was different, I made sure I wasn’t coming to fight for the general classification and that set me free. I told the team that the yellow is now or never, that if I don’t let myself lose 20 minutes to be able to fight in stages, but it worked,” he said.
He DSM Corridor He explained that he tried to enter the breakaway today to get classification points for the mountains, because he promised his son the characteristic red points jersey. “In the end he took the big shot,” he added.
Bardet declared that he always felt “a certain adoration” for the yellow jersey: “For me it is an inaccessible object, a rare jersey, which crowns for me many years of participation in the Tour , which fixes a lot of frustration.”
Bardet, for many years one of the main assets of his country to fight for a Tour they have not won since he did it Bernard Hinault in 1985, He participated for the eleventh time in the French round, where in addition to his two podiums and three other stages, he won the mountain jersey in 2019.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
