"It was a proper Tour de France stage today" was how Tadej Pogačar described a hard-fought 207km hilly trek on Tuesday at the Critérium du Dauphiné, where a tense truce evolved between the main GC teams as they pushed hard to keep a dangerous 13-rider breakaway in check.
Pogačar could be seen staying close to the front end of the chasing bunch on the fast and furious stage to Charantonnay, run at a blisteringly rapid average speed of 45.2kph, and that despite the 3,036 metres of vertical climbing and warm weather. But early on, the Slovenian had his eye on the ball, too, picking up a couple of bonus seconds in the one intermediate sprint of the day after 29km.
Following the early skirmishes, UAE Team Emirates-XRG chased hard behind, hellbent on only letting the break of the day gain only a very limited advantage on the longest stage of the 2025 race, mainly running across the foothills of France's Massif Central mountains.
But as Pogačar, 44th across the line in the main pack, told reporters after the finish, the presence of dangerous GC riders like Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), already second in Paris-Nice and fourth in Itzulia Basque Country this year, and former top ten Giro d'Italia finisher Eddy Dunbar (Jayco-AlAla) rendered the break too dangerous to get any more of a margin.
"It was a proper Tour de France stage today, we committed to work as a team and we did a super job," Pogačar, now ninth overall at 1:06 on stage winner and new race leader Iván Romeo, said afterwards.
"We knew that if we did it alone, it'd be hard to control this kind of breakaway, [but] especially with Florian Lipowitz and Eddie Dunbar in the move, you shouldn't give them too much advantage."
Pogačar said that his UAE team did get some assistance, although it wasn't enough to bring back the move. Lipowitz finished just outside the time bonuses in fourth, clinching 54 seconds on the chasing peloton, while Dunbar crossed the line 41 seconds ahead.
The triple Tour de France winner also hinted that while Visma-Lease a Bike collaborated, their main interest might be more on keeping their main archrival, Pogačar himself, under control.
"Soudal-QuickStep realised that. They put one guy to help, but it was not enough. In the middle [of the stage], Visma did a little bit of help, but I guess they're not worried about the other contenders," he said with a wry laugh.
"But we did a really good team effort today. We're getting ready for the Tour. It was a proper, hard, Tour de France breakaway stage."
Pogačar and the rest of the GC challengers will now come to the fore for the first time since stage 1's late scuffle, on Wednesday's short, but punchy, 17.4km individual time trial between Charmes-sur-Rhône and Saint-Péray.
Then, after another transition stage on Thursday, it's into the Dauphine's decisive three days in the mountains.
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