{"id":705811,"date":"2026-05-31T12:54:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/705811\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:54:01","slug":"romain-bardet-and-thomas-de-gendt-abandon-unbound-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/705811\/","title":{"rendered":"Romain Bardet and Thomas De Gendt abandon Unbound 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.indeleiderstrui.nl\/unbound-gravel\">Unbound Gravel<\/a> 2026 is over. Mads W\u00fcrtz Schmidt won after an impressive solo, but as with Paris-Roubaix, every rider has his own story in this race. Among those who failed to reach the finish in Emporia on Saturday\u2019s 200-mile event were Thomas Dekker, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/romain-bardet\">Romain Bardet<\/a>, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/thomas-de-gendt\">Thomas De Gendt<\/a> and Ivar Slik.Bardet has been in the United States for a while as part of a family trip. The Frenchman, who retired last year, has also already built up some strong <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/gravel\" title=\"Gravel\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gravel<\/a> credentials, with wins in RADL and more recently Rule of Three. He also finished fifth at the Traka.At Unbound, Bardet found himself on the back foot after the muddy first section, but he still managed to pass some riders. In the end, his race ended after 163 kilometres. \u201cUnbound Carnage,\u201d was his telling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/pros\/1630132?num_entries=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Strava title<\/a>. \u201cWithout a chain guide you had no chance.\u201d Bardet counted his blessings and stepped off.De Gendt misses the finish despite a strong start<a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/thomas-de-gendt\" title=\"Thomas De Gendt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas De Gendt<\/a> was perhaps the most recognisable Belgian name on the start list. The pure rouleur, made for long efforts like Unbound, was in the mix for a top-10 result for a long time, until he disappeared from the intermediate timings.What happened? \u201cAn unrepairable puncture, while I was riding in the top 15,\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/athletes\/1855274?num_entries=10\">the former rider said<\/a>. In the end, Daan Soete was the best Belgian in the results, in sixth place.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading below the Strava post!<\/p>\n<p>Lachlan Morton abandons early<a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/lachlan-morton\" title=\"Lachlan Morton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lachlan Morton<\/a> also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/lachlan-morton-crashes-out-of-unbound-gravel-and-dekker-dnfs-have-no-words-for-it-right-now\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">abandoned the race<\/a>. The EF Education-EasyPost rider was among the early names to disappear from contention in the brutal conditions, as the mud, crashes and mechanical trouble took their toll across the course.<\/p>\n<p>Morton\u2019s departure added to the long list of high-profile DNFs in a race that became a survival test rather than a normal gravel event. Morton suffered a crash early on in the race, injuring his hip. He was checked for concussion by the race medical team but deemed to be ok. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unbound Gravel 2026 is over. Mads W\u00fcrtz Schmidt won after an impressive solo, but as with Paris-Roubaix, every&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,41260,256635,256633,82,256634,113116],"class_list":["post-705811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-gravel","tag-lachlan-morton","tag-romain-bardet","tag-sports","tag-thomas-de-gendt","tag-unbound-gravel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}