The penultimate stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné was also the queen stage of this year’s edition. It was a short but intense day, the riders had to tackle 133,5 km but three category one climbs before heading up to the summit finish on Pipay, a Hors Categorie climb.
As expected a breakaway formed early in the day, as 22 riders established a gap of more than three minutes. After the first ascent the breakaway split, as two riders managed to distance themselves from their fellow escapees. The chasing group grew to 27 riders. The group rode together onto the final ascent of the day while, Emanuel Buchmann was riding in the yellow jersey group only some minutes behind the leading group.
Emanuel Buchmann
The race headed onto the final climb where, as expected, it all fell apart in the final kilometers. Two riders at the front were caught and with 3km to go the BORA – hansgrohe rider launched an attack followed by Fuglsang. The young German rider dug deep in the closing meters of the stage. At the very last moment W. Poels bridged across and was able to overtake both to sprint to victory. The young German crossed the line in third place, moving up to fourth on the general classification. He is now 21 seconds down on the new leader, but only 1 seconds away from third place overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné.
Results
01 W. Poels 4:01:34
02 J. Fuglsang +0:01
03 E. Buchmann +0:01
