Romain Bardet brings a close to his Tour de France career; good team performance over 3 weeks

The final stage of this year’s Tour de France saw the peloton tackle a 31.7 kilometre time trial from Monaco to Nice, passing over La Turbie and Col d’Eze, before a daring and fast descent into the finish. Each of Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s remaining five riders set off down the ramp during the afternoon, all with a personal goal in mind. John Degenkolb and Warren Barguil completed their tenth Tour de France, while youngsters Oscar Onley and Frank van den Broek were on their way to finishing their first La Grande Boucle.
However, the adoration of the fans roadside and at home watching along on their TV screens belonged to Romain Bardet; who was completing his final ever Tour de France. Smiling as he took to the starting house, Bardet left to rapturous applause and the cheering and encouragement followed him along every metre of the course. Coming into the final kilometre, Bardet could sit up and soak it all-in, shouted home by his wife and child on the radio from the following team car as he crossed the line; recounting that incredible opening day and the memories that followed.
Speaking about the time trial Bardet expressed: “Today was an amazing experience. I wanted to have a good rhythm on the climb. I know the area quite well so I did a good descent. I had my wife and kid in the car encouraging me which was an incredible experience, I’m so grateful to the team for this moment.”
“I’m glad that I had the support from all of the team, they were amazing on that first day, especially Frank. I have to thank them for giving me that amazing opportunity, I’m really grateful for it – it will be a lifelong memory. It’s even more special because we achieved it as a team. At home we don’t keep too much memorabilia but I think we will hold onto that yellow jersey.”
Reflecting on the race as a whole, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “I think we’ve had a really nice Tour de France. It started with the perfect weekend, taking the one-two plus the yellow jersey after really good preparation by everyone. We’ve done some really good stages throughout the race after that and I think we can say that we’ve really been in the race on the days we wanted to be. I’m really happy with that. We’ve made some nice steps as a team so all-in-all it has been a really nice Tour de France.”