Veilleux solos to victory in Dauphiné opener

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A quarter of a century after Steve Bauer won the prologue of the 1988 Criterium du Dauphiné, David Veilleux became the second Canadian to impose himself in the French alpine race that had an unusual start with a short hilly stage rather than a prologue.

At the end of a 118km long breakaway, including 47km on his own, the Europcar rider preceded the peloton of the favorites by almost two minutes.

“This is a fantastic feeling”, Veilleux said in Champéry, Switzerland.

“This is my first time taking part in the Dauphiné. The standard of the race is extremely high, that’s why I didn’t have any expectation at this level. It was worth trying. I’ve started to believe that something would be possible when our breakaway gained more than nine minutes. But later, it was only in the last 300 metres that I realized I’d won. It’s an enormous satisfaction. It comes from a lot of sacrifices and huge amounts of work. I’m happy that it pays off.”

Veilleux was the first man to attack after only three kilometres of racing. He was soon rejoined by Ricardo Garcia (Euskaltel), Thomas Damuseau (Argos-Shimano) and Jean-Marc Bideau (Bretagne-Séché) as they began their effort with the first category climb côte de Morgins where Bideau passed in first position. They reached a maximum advantage of 10.10 at km 40. After one hour of warming up, the peloton got organized. Vacansoleil-DCM was the first team to take care of the chase, later helped by Orica-GreenEdge, Team Sky and Movistar, working for stage favorites Simon Gerrans, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Alejandro Valverde, respectively.

Used to longer stage distances, the top pro teams underestimated the capacity of Veilleux whose record book was limited to four wins up to date: Roue tourangelle in 2011, stage 1 and GC of the Mi-Août bretonne last year as well as the Tre Valli Varesine in Italy.

“For us Canadians, the most difficult part of our career is to put the foot in the door”, the 26 year old explained. “It’s a question of seizing opportunities. I joined Europcar in a period of redevelopment.”

He took the opportunity to go solo two kilometers before the top of the col de Corbier with 47km to go when he felt that his breakaway companions weren’t helpful anymore as the race entered its difficult last part. “Normally I’m not a climber but I know that I can climb decently”, Veilleux explained. “Going from far away, there was a chance.”

Having attacked from the bunch at km 33, Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) rode solo between breakaway riders and the bunch but he never caught the first rider on the road. The Canadian maintained an advantage of five minutes over the peloton led by Movistar until the 25km to go mark. He still had 1.55 over Damuseau and Garcia and more than three minutes lead over the peloton at the bottom of the last climb leading to the uphill finish of Champéry inside ten kilometers to go. It looked like the peloton gave up. As they limited the damage, they successively caught Bideau, Martin, Garcia and Damuseau.
Ivan Santaromita (BMC) was the only rider to try and escape from the peloton within two kilometers to go but it was a bunch sprint for second place with Gianni Meersman (OPQS) beating Tom-Jelte Slagter (BLA) who became the best young rider.

“I didn’t know what to expect today after being not very healthy last week after the Tour of Belgium”, said the Dutchman who won the Santos Tour Down Under in January.

“I was on antibiotics before coming to the Dauphiné. But during the race, I didn’t feel so bad. A short stage was something good to begin with. In the final climb, I stayed behind Chris Froome and Alberto Contador and in the last kilometer, I did my own sprint. I didn’t come to the Dauphiné for riding GC but now that I’m in the white jersey, I’m not going to give it away.”

Veilleux looks good in yellow too. “Now I’ll profit as much as I can from those moments”, the rider from Quebec said. “I’ll be able to enjoy with the yellow jersey. I don’t know if it can last for a few days, probably not the whole week! Of course it’s a dream to ride the Tour de France this year, but for now, I’m here to do my job as well as I can.”