Despite being a climber who can do very well in stage races and Grand Tours every season, AG2R’s Romain Bardet has said that Liege-Bastogne-Liege is a race he really wants to try and win this season, following 13th, 10th and 6th in his last three outings.

“That’s a race where I go in with ambition every year, I have a good feeling with it,” Bardet said. “2016 will be my fourth time to do it, so I think I now know a little bit about how the race plays out and I’d like to able to get a big result at Liège pretty soon,” Bardet told Cyclingnews ahead of the opening stage of the Tour of Oman.

“I’ve often found myself up against riders a little bit quicker than me, like Valverde and Alaphillippe last year,” he said. “I need to get away earlier, or why not, anticipate the finale a bit like Dan Martin has done.”

Bardet also spoke on his two other big goals for the season: the Tour de France and Olympics. He says that as a Frenchman, every expectation is amplified for him at the Tour.

“On the Tour de France, everything is multiplied, amplified. You can feel that pressure because the people want results from the French riders and so on,” he explains. “But I think having that pressure so young means I’ll be able to manage it better and better as I get older.”

Despite not managing to better his GC result from 2014, Bardet says that 2015 was by far his best Tour de France outing.

“Everybody saw it as a lost cause, that I wasn’t at the same level as in 2014, but then in the space of a week in the Alps, I managed to win a stage, get into the top ten and wear the polka dot jersey,” he said. “It’s true that there were highs and lows in 2015, but it turned out to be my most successful Tour all the same.”

Bardet says the timing of the Olympics is perfect and he thinks he can recover comfortably from the Tour to be a factor in the 260km race in Rio two weeks later.

“The timing of the race is perfect, I think,” he said. “A week after the Tour de France would have been too short a gap, whereas two weeks is just right for recovering while being able to hold onto your form.”