Team dsm-firmenich PostNL animate stage as Romain Bardet takes 7th on Passo Brocon

After overcoming a tough moment on Tuesday’s stage through some good teamwork, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL wanted to bounce back in Wednesday’s stage; ultimately taking seventh place with Romain Bardet on the day.
A hard day in the mountains awaited the peloton, faced with the stage that had the most amount of climbing per kilometre of the whole Giro. The team set out with the plan of trying to get Bardet into the breakaway on the first climb and ideally with one or two teammates in there. However, a solid pace on the ascent combined with multiple attacks meant that a reduced peloton was pretty much together near the top. Pushing on down the descent, Bardet managed to get a gap alongside three others, behind a four rider leading group. Yet, there was still a lot of impetus in the peloton behind and with the gap only small at around 15 seconds, Bardet sat up and waited for the bunch.
Those ahead then extended their advantage to around two minutes where it held for a long time on the Passo Rolle climb. With the gap still at a bridgeable position, the team then set a hard pace on the front through Chris Hamilton; with the joint goal of looking to bring Bardet closer to the group but to also put extra energy expenditure in the competition’s legs as Bardet prefers a harder stage. Reducing the gap to around one minute at the summit, Hamilton put on a descending masterclass, stretching out and splitting the bunch on the technical downhill. Keeping the pace high in the short valley that followed, Hamilton then handed over to Gijs Leemreize who set a strong tempo on the Passo Gobbera. Once Leemreize had strung things out, Kevin Vermaerke launched it at the front with Bardet in tow as the duo looked to jump out of the bunch. Unfortunately for them, the only rider to initially react was race leader Pogacar who was quickly in the wheels, and as a result this then saw reactions from the rest of the GC riders and their teams.
The action then stopped in the Maglia Rosa group, where Steinhauser would ultimately launch the attack that would see him go on to take the stage win. Some other teams then took over in pace setting, while Team dsm-firmenich PostNL contributed occasionally when things stalled as to keep things ticking over and not allow full recovery for those who were maybe struggling due to the hardness of the stage. The GC group was all together coming onto the last ascent of the Passo Brocon where things were slowly ramped up, and riders tailed off one-by-one. Battling hard all the way to the top, Bardet showed good legs and finished in seventh place on the day alongside others in the GC battle, with only Pogacar finishing ahead of his group. It’s a result which sees him and the team sit in the same position of seventh in the GC standings heading into the final four days of racing.
Speaking after the stage Bardet expressed: “We went racing how I liked it today. When you can have an impact on the race with the team; I really enjoyed it. Our intent and plan was for me to get in the early break. I wasn’t far from bridging across to the first break, but the pace wasn’t so high on the first climb and with the valley roads I then sat up and waited for the bunch because I knew that it would be easy for some teams to pull me back if they wanted. From then, we knew the conditions would be difficult so we also tried to make a hard race as I like it when it’s harder on the pedals all day. After we pulled hard on the descent and it was split onto the next climb, we thought it could be a good time to try and attack to get ahead and put ourselves in a position to go for the stage. I was a bit surprised to see Pogacar keen to do some moves and in my wheel, as that then meant the other GC guys followed, and that was that. I still felt pretty good on the last climb and the guys did a really good job today so we can take confidence from it. We still have a couple of mountain stages to try something.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “We saw yesterday that Romain hadn’t really had much activation in the legs and as soon as it went hard he dropped and the guys did well to bring him back and limit our losses. So today we said we wanted to make it as hard as possible so that it would suit us more. Romain was in the break like we had hoped but unfortunately it was a small group. We needed like 15 or 20 guys out front for it to work, so he came back to the bunch. Then we said we would commit and make it hard from the group and see what would happen. The race then split on the descent where the guys did a great job so we kept pushing a bit on the next climb. Kevin and Romain then tried to launch it but Pogacar was straight in the wheel which then of course brings all of the other GC guys with us. At that moment we then said ‘okay’. We still wanted to keep some pressure on in the peloton so when it sat up then we would ride and keep that tempo on until the final attacks and see where we end up, but in the end some other teams did that anyway. I think we did a good job today to try something, as well as in the final to get another top ten on the stage with Romain finishing alongside other GC guys, while also gaining some time on others to further cement our place in the top ten overall.”