Despite being in good shape and confident at the end of the season, Romain Bardet was a non-starter this Saturday morning at the start of the Tour of Lombardy. An illness deprived Auvergne of its last “classic of dead leaves”.
It was perhaps the best French card of this 118th edition. But he couldn’t even start in Bergamo. Announced ill by his Dutch team dsm-firmenich PostNL, Romain Bardet had to resolve to withdraw this Saturday from the Tour of Lombardy. Obviously a heartbreak for the 33-year-old from Auvergne, who should not resort again this season, and who hoped to take full advantage of his last appearance on the legendary “classic of dead leaves”.
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He was in great shape
As he announced last summer, the runner-up in the 2016 Tour de France will end his road career in June 2025, with the initial desire to move on to gravel with his sights set on the World Cup. discipline in Nice next year. On the legs at the end of the season, like his tenth place obtained during the Worlds in Zurich, which even left him with regrets, Bardet presented himself with confidence in Lombardy. With the ambition to shine on this Monument which has always pleased him and where he achieved three top 10s (4th in 2016, 8th in 2021 and 9th in 2022).
He was part of a list of outsiders behind the huge favorite Tadej Pogacar, who came to complete one of the greatest seasons in the history of cycling. On the shores of Lake Como, the Slovenian, three-time outgoing winner, intends to match Fausto Coppi, the only one to have won the race four years in a row, at the end of the 1940s. With already 24 successes in 2024, the insatiable glutton can also become the second runner of the 21st century to have won so much in one season and thus do as well as the Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi who won 25 times in 2005.
