Pogacar crushes Vingegaard and Evenepoel in first mountain stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné

Before the stage, with its uphill finish, the question was: What would the top riders do? The interviews at the start gave us some clues. Yellow jersey Evenepoel said on behalf of Soudal Quick-Step that they would mainly watch what the other big teams did—a defensive approach, in other words.

Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) hinted that this was more of a stage for Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG), who agreed. “Maybe this is a good opportunity to eat into the lead of the other guys, but we’ll have to see.”

At 2 PM local time., the riders got underway, and then we saw a breakaway by... yes, Mathieu van der Poel! The green jersey immediately jumped into action and was joined by Toms Skujins (Lidl-Trek), Anders Foldager (Jayco AlUla), Victor Guernalec (Arkea-B&B Hotels), and Fabien Doubey (TotalEnergies).

However, the peloton did not let them escape, so they caught up with van der Poel's group after fifteen kilometers, leaving the game wide open again. Big names such as Maxim Van Gils (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) joined the battle, but it took a long time in the French heat before a leading group could break away.

In the end, eight riders managed to break away, including Van der Poel once again. Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost), Romain Bardet (Picnic PostNL), Michael Leonard (INEOS Grenadiers), (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X), Pierre Thierry (Arkea-B&B Hotels) and Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) were the other names.

UAE Emirates-XRG made Pogacar's words reality and took control of the peloton, but in doing so, they did not give the group with van der Poel and Bardet more than a two-minute lead. Domen Novak was the breakaway killer on duty, meaning that the men at the front never really had a chance of winning the stage.

Towards the climb to Mont-Saxonnex, 5.5 kilometers at 8.6 percent, Visma | Lease a Bike also made a strong contribution. Attila Valter, Per Strand Hagenes, and Victor Campenaerts stormed up the climb like a lead-out, which seemed part of a plan. The first attack came immediately after that from Sepp Kuss.

The American, who was later dropped, lured Pogacar out of his shell, as did Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz. The latter rose to the occasion and even dared to attack the trio from Visma | Lease a Bike. Logically, the front runners were caught one by one on the Saxonnex. Baudin and Leonard managed to hold on the longest.

There were also casualties in the group of favorites. Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers), Santiago Buitrago, and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), for example, while Enric Mas (Movistar) and Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) managed to stay with the leaders. The same was true for the 18-year-old (!) top talent Paul Seixas of Decathon AG2R, among the top ten climbers in the race.

Once at the top, there was still a descent and then twenty flat kilometers to the foot of the final climb, where Wellens took the lead on behalf of UAE in the group of favorites. A few men could return, which allowed Baudin and Leonard to pull away a little and start the final climb with a 1.15-minute lead.

On the Domancy climb, UAE Emirates-XRG set a blistering pace, eliminating Jhonatan Narváez Evenepoel and Jorgenson. Then, it was up to Pogacar, who rode Vingegaard out of the wheels with a single acceleration. From the saddle, no less. The Dane then visibly lost more time to his Slovenian rival, while the group behind consisted of Evenepoel, Jorgenson, Lipowitz, and an impressively strong Wellens. The German proved to be the better rider there.

On the less steep sections, Pogacar extended his lead so that the verdict at the finish line on the Cote de Cry was pretty clear: Vingegaard lost more than a minute, while Evenepoel finished more than a minute and a half behind Lipowitz and Jorgenson.