Criterium du Dauphine: Wout Poels wins stage 7

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Wout Poels took an emotional win at the rain-soaked Criterium du Dauphine as the race finally headed into the high mountains, waving his arms in joy and satisfaction before dedicating his victory to Team Ineos and Chris Froome, who crashed dramatically as he and Poels studied the time trial stage on Wednesday.

Poels, like at everyone in the sport, had been shocked by the severity of Froome’s crash and the multiple fractures that needed long hours of surgery. Froome will miss the Tour de France but Poels’ fight back and stage victory showed that Team Ineos have no intentions of abdicating their Grand Tour crown.

"It’s really nice for the team and it’s a gift for Chris [Froome] also," Poels said.

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Poels came from behind in the final kilometre of the 133km stage to catch to Les Sept Laux-Pipay and pass Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), who had gone away earlier in the 19km Montée de Pipay climb to the finish. Poels surged across the gap and cut under the two inside the final five hundred metres. It was his first victory of 2019.

Fuglsang and Buchmann finished one second behind Poels, with Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) in a select GC chase group at ten seconds. Fuglsang was disappointed to miss out on the stage victory but the time bonus for second place helped him take the leader’s yellow jersey from Yates with only Sunday’s final mountain stage to Champery left to race.

Fuglsang now leads Yates by eight seconds, with Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) third overall at 20 seconds after a strong performance by the American. Buchman is fourth overall at 21 seconds, with Poels moving up to fifth at 28 seconds. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) both lost contact in the finale, losing 46 seconds and slipping out of the top ten overall.

Riders in the storm

The riders started the stage in the sun of the valley but the clouds turned dark and then the heavens opened, soaking the riders on the final two climbs. Fortunately the worst conditions occurred before the riders reached the 1561m-high finish, meaning they avoided the hailstone and pouring rain.

“When we started, it looked like it was going to be a nice day. We were hoping for a good weather the whole day but in the last climb it was so cold… Half of me was just saying ‘okay let’s get to the finish as fast as possible”, that was the only thing I wanted to do,” Fuglsang explained.

“I’m happy with the jersey and I hope to defend it tomorrow although the last day is going to be a difficult day. The short format will make it a hard and interesting racing with the jersey, it might not be as enjoyable as when I won the Dauphiné two years ago. I took the jersey on the last day.”

The stage was only 133km long but included four major climbs. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) made it worse for his rivals by going on the attack from the start in pursuit of points for the blue polka-dot mountains jersey. He was soon joined by others, with a group of 29 eventually going away.

The peloton was over four minutes behind at one point, with Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) the virtual race leader. He was only 30 seconds down on Yates and was one of the strongest in the attack. After taking maximum points on the first two climbs, Alaphilippe eased up but the other pressed on.

However the Mitchelton-Scott team did some hard work to lead the chase and Movistar set a fierce tempo on the first part of the final 19km climb to set up leader Nairo Quintana. The Colombian went on the attack halfway up the climb but Michal Kwiatkowski went with him, revealing the Colombian did not have the legs to win the stage. The attack ended the hopes of the break, with Lutsenko and Michael Woods (EF Education First) pulled back with five kilometre to go.

Fuglsang went on the offensive at this point, with Buchmann impressing and riding with him. They ground out a gap as Yates played a waiting game, perhaps knowing he was on the limit. Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) tried to close the gap to Fuglsang and Buchmann but the GC riders toyed with each other, allowing Fuglsang to push on and stay away. Only Poels had the courage and late surge to go across the gap, giving him the stage victory and Fuglsang the yellow jersey.

Sunday’s stage from Cluses to Champery in Switzerland is only 113km but includes seven categorised climbs and a final mountain finish. The 2019 Criterium du Dauphine is far from decided.

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