The climb to Valmorel outside Grenoble was the first major summit finish of the Criterium du Dauphine, and Dan Martin (UAE Team Emriates) made up for missing out on the previous day's lesser climb, emerging victorious out of a select group of race favourites atop the hors categorie ascent.
The steady gradient kept the lead group together until 3km to go when Martin's attack shattered the Team Sky-led peloton, but Geraint Thomas made his own move higher up the mountain, coming within four seconds of catching the Irishman. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) was third.
With his teammate Gianni Moscon unable to follow the pace, Thomas moved into the race lead, with BMC's Damiano Caruso gaining enough time to move into second overall on equal time with the Italian who dropped to third.
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