Evans wins Dauphiné stage 1

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Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) showed his pre-Tour de France form by winning the first stage of the Criterium du Dauphine. The defending Tour champion won the sprint of a three-man group which got away near the end, taking the win only seconds before the onrushing peloton. Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) took second and Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) in third.

Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) moved into the overall lead, as yellow jersey Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEdge) was dropped on the last of the day's six climbs. Also dropped, and more surprisingly, was Andy Schleck of RadioShack-Nissan. Riding next to Astana's Alexandre Vinokourov, the younger Schleck crossed the finish line more than three minutes after Evans, which will undoubtedly bring the next lecture from Johan Bruyneel.

Also in trouble on the stage was Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel-Euskadi. The Basque rider crashed heavily early in the stage, but was determined to make it to the end, despite reports that he had suffered several broken ribs - which could endanger his build-up to the Tour de France and Olympics next month. Sanchez finished nearly 24 minutes down.

Evans got away on the final descent. “It was a bit of difficult descent, quite narrow. I saw a bit of an opportunity there in the little group in the peloton. Sometimes you see these opportunities and you have to try something.

Wiggins, while glad to have the lead, respected Evans' performance and played down any suggestions that the Australian had outplayed him on the day. “It’s hard to look too much into the results today. I knew Cadel would be good as the Tour de France is coming up and he’s always good at the Tour. There’s no surprise there.

Six-man break group with a big gap

The day's break got away early. Giovanni Bernaudeau (Europcar), Markel Irizar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda), Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) and Yukihiro Doi (Argos-Shimano) took off inside the first five kilometres of the day and quickly built up a lead of over 13 minutes. That was enough for the field to start the chase.

It was an up-and-down course with six ranked climbs, but none more than a category two. Saur-Sojasun, Sky and Orica-GreenEdge led the chase early, with BMC taking a turn before Omega Pharma-QuickStep moved in to take charges.

Sanchez crashed shortly after 50km were ridden, and struggled to continue, falling further and further behind. Race doctors said he had probably broken several ribs in the crash and would go to hospital after the stage.

Only four riders were left in the break group as they started up the day's final climb at about 12km to go, with the Omega Pharma-QuickStep-led field less than a minute back. Andy Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan) was dropped on the category three climb. Meanwhile his teammate Irizar was alone in the lead.

Irizar was caught soon enough and a high-powered group of Cadel Evans (BMC), Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) and Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) formed, slowly building up a slight lead over the field.

The trio stayed away to the end, crossing the finish line only seconds before the field. Evans led the charge, holding off Coppel at the finish line.

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