Critérium du Dauphiné: Formolo wins stage 3

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Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) hung on for an incredible win on stage 3 of the Criterium du Dauphine, taking the win ahead of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) in second and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) in third.

Roglic extended his lead in the general classification as Tour de France champion Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) ceded more time in the push to the line.

Formolo was part of the day’s early break and survived a series of climbs before attacking on the Col de la Madeleine and going clear with a lead of over five minutes. He started the final climb to Saint-Martin-de-Belleville with his lead virtually intact but with Jumbo-Visma keen to put their rivals under pressure, the Italian champion had to fight for every second as he battled up the final 14.6km climb.

Jumbo-Visma’s pace was too much for several riders including Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), and the Team Ineos pairing of Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome.

Inside the final 2.5km, Formolo began to struggle as Sepp Kuss picked up the pace for his leader Roglic but there was little activity from the GC riders until near the finish when the Slovenian decided to turn the screw. 

Roglic's acceleration saw him close the gap to 33 seconds on Formolo on the line but, more importantly, he put further time into his rivals with six bonus seconds. Bernal lost out once more, and was unable to even follow his teammate Pavel Sivakov as Pinot and several others followed the yellow jersey. 

Roglic now leads the race with Pinot in second at 14 seconds and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) a further six seconds back in third. Bernal slipped from fourth to seventh and his now 31 seconds down with two stages remaining.

As for Formolo, this was the perfect tonic after a poor showing on stage 2. The Italian, who finished second in Strade Bianche, looked imperious as he rode away from his breakaway companions, and then used his guile and experience to take a thoroughly deserved win.

“I was in the break from the start with eight guys, and already before the Col de la Madeleine I said ‘we only have three minutes – there’s no way to wait until the finish'," Formolo said.

"So I said to myself 'just ride your good rhythm on the Madeleine, and try and get some space between the bunch'. Then I actually thought the last climb started straight after the descent, but it was 10km up and down in the valley. That was really hard – I lost a lot of energy in the valley. 

"On the last climb I didn’t know if I could make it. I was looking at the profile and saw the Madeleine was really hard then I saw this last climb was slightly up and down the whole time. I thought it would be impossible to make a big difference in the break so I’d better attack on the Madeleine, and then pray I came to the finish line.”

How it unfolded

A frantic start ensured that it took a long time for the main break to form but when it finally came, it was stacked with talent. Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe), Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Pierre Latour (AG2R), Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates), Christopher Juul Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Søren Kragh Andersen, Jasha Sütterlin (Team Sunweb), Guy Niv (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Maxime Chevalier (B & B-Vital Concept) pushed clear and quickly established a lead of over a minute.

Jumbo-Visma set about controlling the main field but after 70km of racing, they had allowed the leaders to establish a gap of 2:30. When the breakaway turned off the main road and started to climb the Col de la Madeleine - a 17.3km ascent at an average of 8.3 per cent – Formolo’s class quickly became evident. He made light work of the break, with only Latour offering any true form of resistance. But when the Frenchman quickly drifted out a minute behind the UAE Team Emirates rider, it was clear that Formolo was in for the long haul. He stretched his lead to over five minutes as he crested the top and then took several risks on the long descent into the valley.

Wout van Aert set the pace at the front of the peloton as the gap slowly began to crumble before Robert Gesink moved to the front on the lower slopes of the climb. Van Aert returned for a brief cameo soon after and his pace-setting was too much for Alaphilippe. Froome was the next heavyweight to ease up with around 12km to go as up ahead, Formolo’s shoulders began to rock.

With 4km to go, Thomas pulled up - his form perhaps more of a concern than Froome’s – leaving Team Ineos with just Sivakov and Bernal. 

Sepp Kuss kept the lead group in check for the remainder of the climb before Roglic provided one of his typical big-gear accelerations. By then, Formolo had crossed the line to take the stage win, but with two more mountain stages to go the battle for the GC is far from over. Jumbo and Roglic tightened their grip but their rivals haven’t given up just yet.

Mikel Landa moved up, alongside Daniel Martinez and Miguel Angel Lopez but Alaphilippe lost over 20 minutes, while Enric Mas and Rigoberto Uran are among those that need to make up ground before the Tour de France.

Highlights