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Former French cycling star Romain Bardet will join the road cycling team Decathlon CMA CGM as a sports director in 2027, linking up with teenage talent Paul Seixas as the French team looks to build up its long-term sporting structure.
Bardet announced the move on Thursday, marking a return to the outfit where he raced between 2012 and 2020, when the team competed under the name AG2R.
The role will bring Bardet back into elite cycling one year after he ended his racing career. A sports director in professional cycling is part of the senior sporting staff responsible for guiding riders, planning performance work and helping shape race strategy.
Bardet told Agence France-Presse (AFP) and L'Equipe that he would oversee the team’s sporting sector in cooperation with general management, covering training, youth development, the World Tour squad and rider performance structures.
"I will oversee, in collaboration with the general management, the whole sporting sector from training, the formation of our New Gen (youth) and World Tour teams through to the personal development of riders and the whole performance structure around our athletes," Bardet said.
A decade ago, Bardet was seen as one of France’s leading hopes, along with Thibaut Pinot, to end the country’s long wait for a home Tour de France winner, a drought that had stretched back to 1985.
Since Laurent Fignon lost the race by eight seconds to American Greg Lemond in 1989, no French rider has come closer than Bardet, who finished second in 2016 and third in 2017.
That national expectation has now shifted toward Seixas, described as a teenage sensation, and Bardet will be involved from next year as Decathlon CMA CGM works on its path toward future tour success.
Bardet, now 35, said he needed time after retirement to "mourn" and to "take a step back" from the sport. He added that he is now motivated to take part in high-level cycling again.
Decathlon said Bardet would contribute to the team’s ambition to establish itself over the long term among the world’s leading cycling structures.
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