There were mixed emotions for Romain Bardet as he crossed the Il Lombardia finish line in Bergamo; the Frenchman had to come to terms with the small regrets at just missing out on the podium, while also reflecting on what has been his finest season to date.
“I’m frustrated because I lacked that explosiveness in the final – I was cramping up,” said Bardet, who was dropped by Esteban Chaves, Rigoberto Uran, and Diego Rosa on the sharp Bergamo Alta climb in the final 5km of the final Monument of the season.
“A small regret is not having collaborated 100 per cent on the Selvino,” he said of the moments after he, Chaves, and Uran had gone clear on the penultimate climb of the day some 35km from the finish.
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“[If we had have done] I don’t think Rosa would have come back. From the moment we became four, there was one too many for us all to get onto the podium, and I knew the last climb suited me much less.
"I don’t have any regrets – I gave it everything I had. We were up there – we were in the fight for victory. It was really a great race so I’m happy to have been up there.”
The ‘race of the falling leaves’ signaled the end of the 2016 WorldTour, and Bardet ends the campaign eighth in the rankings. It has been a season in which the 25-year-old has grown in maturity and consistency, and he made a real breakthrough at the Tour de France with a sensational stage win and second place overall.
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