Criterium du Dauphine: Impey takes overall lead as Kwiatkowski crashes

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Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) showcased his talent with victory on stage 2 of the Critérium du Dauphiné in Belleville en Beaujolais, beating Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) into second place, while Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) moved into the yellow and blue jersey of overall leader after taking third in the reduced bunch sprint.

The breathless finale of the stage was marred by a crash involving previous leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky), who went down alone in the final two kilometres. Though his jersey was ripped and his left elbow bloodied, Kwiatkowski was able to remount and complete the stage. As the incident took place inside the final three kilometres, he was awarded the same time as the front group, but he would lose his jersey to Impey, who picked up a four-second time bonus at the finish.

After placing third behind Impey on stage 1, Ackermann was reluctant to make the same errors again here, and he held his nerve when Belgian champion Oliver Naesen (AG2R La Mondiale) opened the sprint from distance. Ackermann bided his time and then came off the wheel of Boasson Hagen to claim an emphatic sprint win.

“Yesterday I made a mistake and came from the font. Today, I decided to go from the back. I came with high speed and everything was perfect. It’s amazing that I won the race,” Ackermann said afterwards.

Impey, an impressive winner on Monday, was unable to make up the ground and had to settle for third place. Naesen held on for fourth ahead of fellow countryman Jens Keukeleire (Lotto Soudal), while Julien Simon (Cofidis) took sixth.

As on Monday, a notably reduced peloton contested the finishing sprint after the field had been whittled down by a combination of high speeds and hilly terrain in the final hour of racing, with a number of recognised sprinters dropped on the last ascent. Bryan Coquard’s Vital Concept team had been prominent in controlling the break through the day, but the Frenchman was among the many riders jettisoned out the back when Lotto Soudal upped the pace on the final ascent, the category 3 Col du Fût d'Avenas.

“It was a really hard finale, there was a long last climb with 30km to go,” said the 24-year-old Ackermann. “I’m really, really happy that I was in the [front] group and then the team brought me to the best position ever.”

Impey had declared himself surprised to claim victory on stage 1, but he set out on Tuesday mindful that the leader’s jersey was within his grasp, having started the day just 2 seconds behind Kwiatkowski.

“I would obviously have liked to have won again today but to take the time bonus and so get the yellow jersey is a massive bonus for today,” Impey said. “It was quite a tricky finale. We used all of our guys to bring the lone attacker back, so I had to surf myself in the sprint. I thought I was on a good wheel in Keukeleire but we hesitated a little and the other guys got the jump on us.”

How it unfolded

The stage was animated by a four-man move Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Samsic), Antoine Duchesne (Groupama-FDJ), Nikita Stalnov (Astana Pro Team) and Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). The quartet attacked at kilometre zero and built up a maximum lead of 6:40 in the flat opening half of the stage.

Vital Concept were prominent in chasing the escapees on the more rugged terrain later on, which brought the Dauphiné through Beaujolais wine country. Their efforts on the succession of third and fourth category climbs that punctuated the second half of the stage helped to bring the break’s lead back to within more manageable dimensions.

Backaert was dropped from the break on the Col de Crie with 44km remaining, but the leaders still had three minutes in hand on the chasing bunch at that point. Perichon, Duchesne and Stalnov saw their lead diminish rapidly thereafter as Lotto Soudal surged to the front on the Col du Fût d'Avenas.

Lotto’s forcing saw sprinters such as Coquard and Phil Bauhaus unceremoniously dumped from the peloton, and it also triggered a flurry of attacks from the front of the peloton, with Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo) among those on the offensive.

Impey’s Mitchelton-Scott team brought some order to affairs on the run-in, where the break began to fragment, though Stalnov stuck resolutely to his task when even Duchesne and Perichon had relented. The Kazakhstani rider grimly maintained an advantage over the bunch all the way into the final kilometre before his resistance was eventually snuffed out.

By that point, Kwiatkowski had already hit the ground, though the Pole reported no lasting damage when he spoke to reporters outside the Team Sky bus at the finish. “I probably went a bit too quick into the roundabout, maybe one pedal revolution too much, trying to catch Geraint Thomas' wheel, and yeah, I was directly on the ground," Kwiatkowski said.

Kwiatkowski lies second overall, two seconds behind Impey, ahead of Wednesday’s pivotal, 35km team time trial to Louhans.

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