A certain sense of justice, perhaps poetic, perhaps real, always true, invades the hot evening streets of Rimini, its pines with sweaty leaves, its private beaches, the lethargy of a summer Saturday and siesta, when at the end of his career, Romain Bardet, beloved cyclist, finally dresses in yellow. A human drop, fallible, so often failed, almost boomerhe enjoys it and shines in the bubble of hyper-technified cycling, hijacked by the blind faith of young madmen in science and its power. A cycling from another time, that of courage in the challenge, that of the search for plenitude on the road, not at the finish, which Bardet, 33 years old, twice on the podium of the Tour more than half a dozen years ago, interprets beautifully on the San Leo hill, a rough spur of limestone and sandstone, gateway to San Marino from the Apennines of Romagna. Ahead, two minutes further on, a tired breakaway that slowly falls apart in the heat, the sweat, so much humidity and heat, stuck to the body and the thin clothing, without renewing or refreshing, suffocating; around them, the great, the fantastic, of the peloton, who alternate at the head, the Vismas of Vingegaard stupendous, the UAEs of Pogacar who doesn’t even sweat, owners, they believe, of the movements and the wills of all. Not Bardet’s faith. The goal, the vast beaches of the serene Adriatic, is still far away, just over 50 kilometres away.
This is not the inhibited and stressed Bardet, a victim himself – like Thibaut Pinot, his contemporary and companion in fear; like Alaphilippe, the last Frenchman in yellow, in 2021 – of the French need, already 39 years of waiting, to find a Tour winner after Hinault in 1985. This is the liberated Bardet who finds pleasure in solitude and adventure, without being accountable to anyone, a rebel who in Liège, two months ago, breaks with the norm of recent years, that of the scruffy Pogacar worshippers who, when the unbeatable Slovenian escapes, look at each other, agree not to move and wait to sprint to be second and, they add with false irony, first among humans. Bardet laughs at them and pursues hard, perhaps aware of the futility of his enterprise, but, precisely for that reason, more determined to carry it out, like the last Saturday in June towards the Adriatic.
“It is a beautiful sign of destiny,” says the Frenchman from Avernus, soft-spoken and polite, looking at the yellow press wrapped around his body. “It rewards determination just when I had already buried all my ambitions. This does not change a future already decided, but the experience of having already ridden so many Tours [décima participación, cuarta victoria de etapa, siempre en montaña hasta esta] It allows me to relativize everything. I left Florence this morning with a totally different spirit from the other Tours, free.”
Bardet accelerates when no one thinks more than surviving and leaves. He meets his companion Frank van den Broek, 23 years old, born in the 19th century, just past San Leo. zoomers But less of a child, and much stronger than his white, Flemish face would have you believe, and with it he pursues his endeavour, the yellow jersey that he has never been able to wear. And thanks to him, to Van den Broek, a splendid and strong rider, with whom he takes turns without reservation, Bardet defies the law of the peloton, small (50 riders: the heat and the hardness of the route: not very flat, seven hard climbs, including the Barbotto, the Romagna wall, climbed at 40 degrees centigrade) but very confident in the rule that is complied with 99% of the time and that stipulates that two minutes melt in 20 kilometres and one in 10.
Pedersen’s Lidl, the Danish star, Van Aert’s Vismas, the fatalistic and always frustrated Belgian, accelerate, but the distance, perhaps magically, does not reduce. Four kilometers from the beach, the advantage is minimal, less than 30s, and up to Pogacar, happy because he has not suffered as he feared from the great heat, his great traditional enemy, thanks to his acclimatization training, and convinced that there will be a sprint for Victory sharpens the knife. “I was thinking when we got to four kilometers to go, and they had about 25 seconds, if I’m not mistaken, that we were going to catch up with them, so that’s why I also tried the sprint because if I manage to be third I have a 4s bonus,” he explains. , “and I also love sprints in small platoons. At least I beat Pedersen, one of the fastest, although I couldn’t beat Van Aert.” The happy couple even has time to look at each other and in two words accept the team’s orders: it will be Bardet who wins and is the leader of the Tour, and it will not be Van den Broek, the future ahead, who prevents him from doing so, happy with happiness. of his old companion. What was written was fulfilled: Bardet, who already announced that he will leave cycling in June 25, could not leave the peloton without climbing the podium for at least one day in yellow.
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