A hilly opening stage saw attractive racing in the Critérium du Dauphiné today. Silvio Herklotz was part of today’s breakaway, but couldn’t hang on to De Gendt in the final, who took the win. Emanuel Buchmann attacked on the last climb, took 5th place and gained 2 seconds on his main GC rivals.
Well known as one of the last test before the Tour de France in July, the Critérium du Dauphiné’s start list, traditionally is like a who’s who in terms of GC contenders. For BORA – hansgrohe Leopold König was back in the saddle, after being away several months due to some knee issues. But for the Czech Grand Tour specialist, it was just a first test without any pressure in his build up to the Vuelta in August.
BORA – hansgrohe’s hopes were on the shoulders of Emanuel Buchmann. After strong performances in the Tour of the Alps and the Tour de Romandie, where he laid in 3rd place overall before the concluding time trial, Buchmann prepared himself in Osttirol with a 3-week altitude camp for the one week race in France.
Today’s opening stage of the 69th edition of the Dauphiné took place on a parkour around St. Etienne. The 170.5 kilometer long course, with a 15k finishing circuit, was hilly from start to finish and an attractive race was expected. With Buchmann, BORA – hansgrohe wanted to push right from the beginning of the Dauphiné, to may catch some other teams on their back foot.
After a fast start and lots of attacks already on the first climb at 10k, no group managed to build a significant gap first, but the high pace caused serious problems for some of the sprinters. In the downhill the peloton eased off a little, and this moment a group of 7 riders took advantage to break away. One of those leading riders was Silvio Herklotz for BORA – hansgrohe. The gap between break and peloton increased fast and shuttled then around 6:00 when teams Sky and Trek started to control things in the main bunch.
It was Dimension Data who were the first ones to push the pace in the peloton. After the cat. 2 climb of the day the gap dropped to around 4:00, before the downhill to the first finish passage. Going into the first lap, BORA – hansgrohe also started to move up front in the peloton for their leader Emanuel Buchmann.
In the finale T. De Gendt dropped his breakaway companions and took a solo win in St. Etienne. Silvio Herklotz pushed hard in the chasing group, but was overtaken from a strong diminished peloton in the last climb. Buchmann took advantage of the situation with a small bunch and attacked on the last kilometer of the final climb. The German Champion from 2015 could break away from the favorites with two other riders and finished in strong 5th place today. He also gained 2 seconds on his main rivals in the battle for the GC.
“I had really good legs the whole day. It was our plan, that I try something and maybe surprise some of the other GC riders. I already attacked on the first climb, but Sky took control of the situation then. So it was clear that I have to wait for the final loop to go again. When the two guys attacked then I decided to jump and we went full gas to the finish. It’s just 2 seconds, but you never know how close it will be in the end. But the most important thing is that my shape is really good.” – Emanuel Buchmann
“I had a really good preparation for the Dauphiné. Right from the start I had good legs and jumped a few times. When we were in the break then I thought already about the finale, but De Gendt was too strong in the end. But I am happy with my performance today and now look forward to the next stages.” – Silvio Herklotz
