Romain Bardet (Ag2r) took the biggest win of his short career when he did an incredible solo performance in the first big mountain stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné to take the victory at the top of the Pra Loup climb. Having attacked over the top of the Col d’Allos, he built an advantage of 1.25 on the descent and that was enough to hold off Tejay van Garderen (BMC) and Chris Froome (Sky) while the American took the overall lead with an 18-second advantage over Benat Intxausti (Movistar).

Romain Bardet has been regarded as one of the most promising climbing talents for a long time and with his 6th place in last year’s Tour de France, he fully confirmed that he is a great star in the making. However, the aggressive Frenchman has not taken a lot of victories in his short career, with his overall victory in the Tour de l’Ain probably being his biggest highlight.

In 2015 Bardet has clearly taken another step up and this has filled him with confidence for the Tour de France which is again his big objective. He has prepared for the goal with his usual training camps in the Alps and uses this week’s Criterium du Dauphiné to fine-tune his condition.

Going into the race, Bardet was quietly confident, claiming that he is stronger than in 2014 when he finished fifth in the event. However, he got a small setback in the team time trial where his Ag2r team lost a massive 1.00 to the BMC team.

However, that time loss may have been a blessing in disguise as it gave him the room to ride aggressively in today’s first mountain stage of the race. His brave aggression paid off as a combination of great descending skills, course knowledge and good climbing legs allowed him to finally take that big WorldTour victory.

"It's kind of hard for me to realize what just happened," he said. "I told myself I'd attack and when I saw that no one was following in the downhill I tried to increase the gap. I don't feel like I've taken any risk, I even think I rode cautiously, knowing that it was my first time on that road. I paid attention to my trajectories. When I realized that I had more than a minute lead, I knew it was enough to manage and keep something over six kilometers. 

"It's a big satisfaction. For two or three years I have been trying to take a big win at this level. Now it happened in a summit finish after a fine work of the team and without it being planned. It's a nice surprise for me in my comeback race.

"I saw a big selection on the Col d'Allos. I knew the descent was favorable for one rider, even if the idea was not to be alone at the front. I could use the descent to widen the gap. I knew it was possible to keep my advance over 6km. It was important to start the difficulties of the weekend in this way. It kicks it off in a good way.

"It was a narrow road with bad asphalt. We had to stay focused. This descent motivated my offensive. I knew I would not be disadvantaged. 1 km from the summit, I asked Alexis (Vuillermoz) to launch my attack so that I could do the descent from the front.

"Three kilometers from the finish when I saw that I did not lose any time, I began to understand that I would. I wanted to start the beginning of the climb at the same pace as the chasers. I knew it would allow me to win the stage.

"I didn't have the yellow-blue jersey in mind but only the stage victory. Towards the end, I had the feeling it was never ending. It's fantastic to win a mountain stage of that importance, ahead of the favourites of the Tour de France. It's really good for my career. Not a long time ago, I told myself that I hadn't won anything this year yet and I had to wake up. It's a psychological relief. It's by far my best win up to date. 

“I didn’t know the descent at all but I remember Christian Prudhomme talking about the descent back at the Tour de France presentation last October, and this is a stage that I’ve been dreaming about ever since.

“My goal was actually to stay with Astana on the climb because I thought that they would give it a go, and then I tried my luck with 500m to go on the Col d’Allos and no one went with me. From there I had to carry on and I managed to hang on.

“I would have been happy with a top five place but a victory is really something else. It shows how I’ve grown as a rider and it’s nice to have major success at last. I hope this is a major moment for me.

"It was the right strategy. Now that I know that I can win this kind of race, I can raise the bar a bit higher. I'm third on GC now with three difficult stages to go. I'll try to do better than last year (5th) and I'll keep attacking.

"Now I have moved up in the standings. I want to build on this and take advantage of opportunities to gain more places by Sunday.

“I have to be careful because I’m not at my peak Tour de France level yet but that should come in good time. Nibali and Froome remain the favourites for the Tour de France but psychologically this is a boost to my confidence. There’s still a lot of work to be done in this race just to stay on the podium. I know that I won’t be allowed to go away like that again.”