Vomiting on the bike, Romain Bardet suffers early setbacks at Giro d’Italia

There were high hopes for Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) heading into this Giro d’Italia, his previous stop before arriving in Turin being the second step of the podium at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but they have been dented by sickness on the opening two days of the race.

Any normal start to a Grand Tour might have allowed him to come through unscathed, albeit in some discomfort, but the Giro has seen one of its toughest starts, with an explosive opener in Turin and a summit finish on the second day.

It was in Turin that Bardet’s stomach was turning circles, and it was so bad that he ended up vomiting. With the race advancing, there was no time to stop and the Frenchman suffered the ignominy of chucking up on the move.

He conceded 57 seconds to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) that day, and 47 to the main cluster of his more immediate and realistic general classification rivals. The following day he wasn’t so acutely unwell but the sickness had taken it out of him, and by the summit of Oropa he’d shipped a further 1:20 to Pogačar and 53 seconds to the best of the rest.

Read more: Giro d'Italia stage 2: Tadej Pogačar takes first summit finish and maglia rosa

“If I vomited on the bike I’m losing 25 minutes and not finishing the stage,” dsm-firmenich PostNL sports director Matt Winston told GCN, paying tribute to Bardet’s resilience.

"We’re not in panic mode. We’re two days into a 21-day race. If you go into panic mode now we might as well throw all our plans for the year out of the window. Everyone is nice and calm, Romain’s morale is good.

"There is a long way until the third week and, with some of the stages to come before then, for sure some guys on GC will drop away, and for sure some guys will come from behind, and we hope one of those guys will be Romain."

Read more: Romain Bardet out to emulate Thibaut Pinot’s ‘super violence’ at Giro d’Italia

Bardet himself had suggested this kind of approach before the race, referencing Thibaut Pinot’s yo-yoing exploits at last year’s Giro. He refused to be fixated on the steady grind of the GC fight, but also declined to commit purely to stage wins by purposely losing time. Instead, he envisaged a hybrid role where he raced “every day like a Classic” – something he argued would only help his final GC result once all the fluctuations were counted and collected.

In any case, the results sheet now has the two-time Tour de France podium finisher in 22nd place, 2:31 down on Pogačar and 1:46 behind second-placed Geraint Thomas.

For everything you need to know about the 2024 Giro d'Italia, from the history of the race to this year's route and start list, be sure to check out our dedicated race hub.