Critérium du Dauphiné: Wout van Aert wins stage 1

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Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) continued his stunning vein of form on Wednesday, winning the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné with a powerful uphill sprint in Saint-Christo-en-Jarez.

The Belgian, who won Milan-San Remo and Strade Bianche on the two previous weekends, had a strong lead-out from his Jumbo-Visma team in a final kilometre that featured a short descent ahead of the stiff 300-metre haul to the line.

He managed to hold off Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott), with Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) taking the final spot on the podium, and with it four bonus seconds over his general classification rivals.

It was a punchy sprint but, coming after seven categorised climbs at 218 kilometres, it was anything but a gentle introduction to the race, and Van Aert's form was underlined by the fact Peter Sagan and Chris Froome were dropped on the final climb.

Jumbo-Visma had set up their full team train on the penultimate climb, the fourth-category Côte de Leymieux, but seemed to lose control on the fourth-category Col de la Gachet, which topped out a kilometre from the line. Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling) sparked a wave of attacks and Jumbo's GC leaders were drawn out in repsonse, Primoz Roglic first clawing back the Colombian before Tom Dumoulin dealt with moves from Tiesj Benoot (Sunweb) and Pierre Latour (AG2R).

Steven Kruijswijk then hit the front and took them over the summit and down the short descent, with Van Aert and Roglic both perfectly placed for the punishing uphill sprint to the line. Van Aert hit out, immediately created daylight, and managed to keep turning a huge gear to hold off the advancing Impey. There was more of a gap to Bernal, who led the scramble from the GC riders, striking a very small but perhaps not insignificant marker in the battle for the overall contenders.

"Apparently I have good legs," said Van Aert, stating the obvious after pulling on the first yellow jersey as the overall leader of the race.

"I came really tired to the hotel yesterday, after a few days off. The team still wanted to do a perfect job for me today because we saw some chances in the stage. When you have riders like Tony Martin and all these strong leaders that pulled for me in the end, I had so much motivation to go all-out in the sprint.

"I told the guys I was feeling good and wanted to give it a go. When we started to go uphill I had a whole yellow train in front. Primoz, Tom, and Steven are the leaders for us here but they still helped me. This is a big team victory, and we keep the momentum."

How it unfolded

The riders rolled out of Clermont-Ferrand at 10:30 local time, with a long day in the saddle ahead, and it didn't take long for a five-man breakaway to form on the opening flat roads. Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal), Niccolò Bonifazio (Total Direct Energie), Michael Schär (CCC Team), Quinten Hermans (Circus-Wanty Gobert), Tom-Jelte Slagter (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) were the riders in the mix, but, despite the size of the break and the distance of the stage, they were never allowed much more than five minutes.

Hermans took the sole KOM point at the first climb of the day, the Côte du Château d'Aulteribe (1km at 8.2 per cent), before Schär was first at the subsequent intermediate sprint. Bonifazio led them over the top of the rather more serious second-category Col du Béal (10.2km at 5.6 per cent), but soon dropped back to the bunch and then out of the race altogether, suffering from back pain. There was further destruction to the break after the fourth-category Côte de Courreau (4km at 5.7 per cent). Hermans led over the top but he and Van Moer crashed on the descent and both had to abandon the race.

That descent led to the half-way point, and a 50km stretch without any categorised climbs. Schär and Slagter pressed on alone, but saw their lead chipped away at by Jumbo-Visma and Deceuninck-QuickStep, taking three minutes into the final 50km, where four categorised climbs were waiting. It wasn't long before it was down to one, as Slagter was dropped on the approach to the Côte de Saint-Heand (2.9km at 4.3 per cent).

Next up was the Montée Andrei Kivilev (3.6km at 3.8 per cent), which is so-called in memory of the former Cofidis rider who tragically crashed there at the 2003 Paris-Nice and lost his life. Schär crested it before climbing another kilometre or so to the entrance of the finishing circuit, crossing the finish line for the first time with a minute in hand.

At that point, there was action in the peloton, as Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) and Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep) went on the attack, soon to be joined by Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept). Pacher went on to drop those two on the 15km descent to catch Schär, but blew his chances when he slipped out on a misjudged right-hand bend.

Towards the bottom of the descent, Schär was joined by Cavagna and Andersen, but it wasn't long before Cavagna attacked and went solo as the road started to pitch uphill once more with 16km to go. Andersen dropped back to the bunch, and Schär soon went out the back of it altogether.

Cavagna's lead was slim and he was caught just ahead of the penultimate climb of the Côte de Leymieux (2km at 5.5 per cent), as Jumbo-Visma took control and significantly upped the tempo. The pace saw the bunch start to thin out, with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) among those dropped. There was barely a respite ahead of the final climb of the Col de la Gachet (3.3km at 4.6 per cent), which would top out 1km from home, followed by a dip and then another rise to the line.

Jumbo lost their complete control as Movistar, Astana, Sunweb, and Arkea-Samsic moved up. Chris Froome then dropped out of the back of the group, speaking with teammate Jonathan Castroviejo. The first big attack came from Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling), who tore clear 1.7km from the summit and 2.7km from the line. The big hitters were quick to respond, with Roglic closing the gap as the lead group splintered. There was a brief lull before Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) had a brief crack. Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) shut it down and had to do the same again when Tiesj Benoot (Sunweb) tried his luck. Steven Kruijswijk then took them over the top as Jumbo regained some control over proceedings.

They did so just in time, as Van Aert received the perfect assist and, with the form he's shown, he wasn't going to miss from there.

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