Bardet sets sights on Milan-San Remo

Romain Bardet has set his sights on Milan-San Remo and is planning to line up at La Classicissima for only the second time in his career on March 23. 

The Frenchman last raced Milan-San Remo in 2013, finishing 17th in an edition of the spring Monument that was disrupted by heavy snowfall. 

While Bardet is known primarily as a Grand Tour racer, having finished on the podium at the Tour de France in 2016 and 2017, his stand-out performances in 2018 came in one-day races.

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He won the Classic de l'Ardèche at the start of the season, before finishing second at Strade Bianche, second at the Tour du Finistère, ninth at La Flèche Wallonne, and third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Later in the season he was runner-up at the Giro della Toscana before taking the silver medal at the World Championships road race in Innsbruck, missing out on the rainbow jersey in a sprint with Alejandro Valverde.

Bardet will line up at Paris-Nice between March 10-17, and at the Volta a Catalunya between March 25-31. He plans to slot Milan-San Remo into the middle but, with only a day separating it from the start of Catalunya, his team were keen to stress that it wasn't set in stone.

"It's Romain's choice that he wants to add Milan-San Remo to his initial programme, but nothing has been definitively decided. It will all depend how things go at Paris-Nice. AG2R La Mondiale directeur sportif Julien Jurdie told L'Equipe.

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