After a gruelling 207km day in the Critérium du Dauphiné breakaway, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) said stage 3 from Brioude to Charantonnay was "one of the hardest days on the bike ever", which is some description for a man who makes his money dominating the Monuments of cycling.
Van der Poel was active from the flag drop in a rapid opening hour of climbing, with Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty) sparking the 13-rider breakaway that survived all the way to the finish, but the Dutchman was unable to take victory.
In search of his first stage win at a WorldTour race since the 2022 Giro d'Italia, Van der Poel was unable to time a late attack perfectly, getting marked and looked to do the lion's share of the work, as Iván Romeo (Movistar) eventually soloed to victory.
Nonetheless, still racing just two weeks after fracturing his wrist in a mountain bike race, Van der Poel is quickly building in form with the Tour de France under a month away, adding a fifth-place finish to his third-place finishes from stages 1 and 2.
"It was one of the hardest days on the bike I've ever had," said Van der Poel to CyclingProNet. "We have 45 kilometres per hour average, 3000 altitude metres, that says enough, I think.
"Again, I'm super happy with the shape actually, but it's difficult to win in this position as well, everything needs to be 100% correct, and it was a bit of a gamble in the end, but a really nice day out there.
"For the shape, it's important to have hard days like this; it's impossible to recreate them in training, so that's why I'm here."
After the brutally quick start in the heat, the large break had several GC hopefuls present, notably Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), causing Soudal-QuickStep, Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG to keep things close.
Working for Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar, respectively, meant those in front had to work even harder to maintain a gap that was often under the two-minute mark.
The salt marks on Van der Poel's jersey were a sign of how difficult the stage was, and when it came to the final fight for the win, he ran out of steam and was either unable or opted not to follow Romeo's second move, having marked many of the previous attacks.
"It was a lot of riders looking at me, but, of course, in the end, you also need to look at the other riders if you want to win the stage," said Van der Poel.
"It's not up to me to react to every single attack, so that was the gamble in the end. I responded to several, but not all of them.
"We thought that the breakaway might have a chance today, but we didnd't get that much room I think because of Lipowitz that was in our group that was a bit of a pity, but we pulled really hard all day to make it and it's good to at least have some points in the end," he added, after extending his lead in the green jersey competition.
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