He participated in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, finishing 25th on the individual large hill.

Bardal won his first individual Ski jumping World Cup event in Zakopane on 27 January 2008.

In 2012 he won the overall World Cup, becoming the first Norwegian to win it since Espen Bredesen in 1993/94.

A year later, at the 2013 Ski Jumping World Championships in Val di Fiemme, he won a gold medal on the normal hill.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he won a bronze in the individual normal hill event.