An emotion-filled day awaited Team dsm-firmenich PostNL and Romain Bardet, as Wednesday’s stage 11 of the Tour de France passed Bardet’s home roads for the last time in his career. Setting their stall out early, the team worked brilliantly to cover every single attack and breakaway that tried to form out front with Warren Barguil, Oscar Onley, Frank van den Broek and Bardet all featuring in the moves from the flag drop.
The incredibly intense action continued for roughly 80 kilometres of racing which they covered in only 90 minutes, as the attacks continued to pepper the front of the race. Eventually the elastic snapped with Onley being the rider from the team who made it into an initial group of six, which eventually swelled to ten. Although they worked well together, Onley’s group was held close by the peloton and their advantage was only ever allowed to be roughly two minutes before it was slowly reeled in throughout the rest of the stage. Going onto the Puy Mary, Onley’s group was caught as the bunch exploded. From there, the team tried to conserve as much energy as possible with the chance of the stage win gone; which meant that Bardet could enjoy his dedicated corner to the fullest, embracing the joy from the hundreds of fans who came to cheer him on.
Speaking at the finish Bardet expressed: “The only way to show ourselves as a team today was to be in the front with the break, and it was nice to have Oscar out front, but I had a puncture on a bad moment and didn’t have any energy left to try and bridge across after that. It was exceptional to feel the ambiance and atmosphere on Puy Mary. I didn’t expect that many people and such good vibes to be honest. I had goosebumps. Of course, it would have been nice to be in the front at that moment, but we will have some other chances in the coming days because the legs are good.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “The guys did a really good job to search for the breakaway, and we were really present and did a good rotation in the attacks. The break that went clear had Oscar in it for us who had a solid day in his first Tour De France breakaway. The peloton behind decided it would be a GC day though and reeled them in quickly, so in the end we saved energy for the coming days.”