Romain Hardy: "I like be in breakaway and ride for the win”
On the line
“It is always nice to race in front, it was already the case during the Clasica San Sebastian, even if on that occasion it was not to play for the win, as it was the case here, on this 2021 edition of the Polynormande. I like to race, to play for the win. I have done 4th, 3rd and now 5th here from memory, now it’s clear that I would have liked to get that number down in the opposite direction. But hey. I already had a good feeling in San Sebastian and last week I went to the mountains to improve it and that was good for me. Now I feel close to my best level and I hope that the results will follow”.
The debrief
“The good breakaway started at the 21st kilometre, the group had eleven riders at the beginning, then it was reduced to 10. We had Romain Hardy and Thomas Boudat in this group, but as the kilometres went by, this break was reduced to six riders. Romain was still in it. It was on the penultimate climb of the main difficulty of the circuit that a trio broke away and won, and all the riders who were part of it had competed in the Tour de France. The biggest gap was one minute and forty-five seconds with fifteen kilometres to go, the race was always tense, many of the non-represented teams at the front tried for a long time to restore the situation but it wasn’t possible. Romain finished 5th, Anthony came out in a group on the final and finished 10th. There was a good involvement from the whole team, everyone applied the instructions. We were just beaten by stronger riders, and the Arkéa-Samsic jersey was respected, so we finish with no regrets”.