Romain Bardet who made the final podium of the past two Tours de France expressed his fears and ambitions ahead of the 105th edition: “I have some experience by now as this is my sixth Tour de France. I’ve never had such a great support from my team but I’m cautious and humble because I found the field more competitive than ever. We’ll fight stage after stage for the yellow jersey and the objective will take shape as we go along. The route has many pitfalls. We have to be impeccable and irreproachable. We’re very ambitious. We know where we want to arrive but we’re aware of the vagaries of the racing. I’m aim at not losing too much time at the beginning of the Tour and I wish for some luck because there are some tricky stages. In my mind, the level of difficulty of stage 9 is equal to a high mountain stage. The pavés will surely create some big differences between the leaders. Even though I’ve never raced Paris-Roubaix, I’ve never hidden my love for the classics. I find them thrilling in front of my TV, especially when the friends are doing great like [runner up] Silvan [Dillier], Oliver [Naesen] who is a master on the cobblestones, Tony [Gallopin] who is not bad either. Let’s hope for the best before we resume racing in Annecy on a different terrain.”
