Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) claimed the biggest win of his young career to date on the final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, triumphing from the early breakaway with an 8km solo move up the day's, and the race's, final climb.
34 seconds behind the Frenchman, the general classification was confirmed as Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) crossed the finish line together, the Dane unable to detach his great rival on the way up.
Pogačar duly sealed the overall race victory, his first at the Dauphiné, having defended his sizeable lead without much difficulty over 3,500 metres of climbing spread across the final day.
He takes the win by 59 seconds over Vingegaard, while Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) rounds out the podium at 2:38 down, having shed seven seconds to Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) at the line.
"A really amazing week. Once again today great job by the team and they've managed to defend the jersey. We can go home happy to prepare for the Tour," Pogačar said after the stage.
"A lot of positives and all the negatives will turn into positives so it's all good.
"We go to altitude camp at Isola 2000, then three days home, and to the Tour. There's basically not too much to do. Rest after this great week, do some extra work on the time trial, maybe, and then I'm ready.
"I've been here in 2020 at the shortened Dauphiné because of COVID times. It was one of the hardest five days I ever did in my career, and since then, I didn't return. Finally, I did it and I'm super happy and proud."
Pogačar takes home the yellow and green jerseys as overall and points classification champion.
Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) wins the polka dot mountain classification jersey courtest of a final-stage breakaway raid, while Lipowitz wins the white of best young rider.
An emotional Lenny Martinez crosses the line to win stage 8 (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
The final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné took the peloton into the mountains for one last time with six climbs lying between the remaining riders and the finish line, including first-category tests of the Col de Beaune (6.6km at 6.8%) 66km from the end, and the Col du Mont-Cenis (9.6km at 6.9%) 5km out.
Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) were the first attackers of the day, going clear on the early third-category Côte d'Aiton. The pair were quickly caught, but Van der Poel went again on the next climb, the second-category Côte de Saint-Georges-d'Hurtières, after 15km of racing.
He took a small group of riders with him during the second move, but they too were caught before a larger group went clear after the climb. Van der Poel bridged across to the selection of riders, which included Maxim Van Gils (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), Alexey Lutsenko (Israel-Premier Tech), Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease A Bike), Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep), Tobias Foss (Ineos Grenadiers), and stage 3 winner Iván Romeo plus his Movistar teammate Enric Mas.
The move was left to ride clear, gaining three minutes on the peloton on the flat roads heading to the Col de Beaune. Several of their number, including bridging rider Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ) dropped on the way up, but Van der Poel stood firm among the group full of climbers.
Bruno Armirail moved into the virtual mountain classification lead on the way, grabbing KOM points over two of the first three climbs. At the intermediate sprint following the descent, Van der Poel pushed on, grabbing those points but not slowing up after he had distanced the remainder of the break.
Back in the peloton, Uno-X Mobility were doing the work on the front to limit the break's advantage under three minutes. Up the road, Van der Poel had set off on a solo odyssey with a mammoth 58km left to run.
He lead the way over the next climb, the third-category Côte de Saint-André, with a minute over the break and 45km remaining. The following second-category Côte de Aussois (6.3km at 6.2%) would pose a tougher challenge, but he continued on, 1:10 up on the break and 2:40 ahead of the peloton.
Aside from the short descent to follow, much of the remaining kilometres pointed uphill, including that final test of the Col du Mont-Cenis. The peloton was closing in, but only gradually. At the 25km to go marker, Van der Poel still held a 2:20 advantage.
Mathieu van der Poel mounted a long-range solo attack mid-stage (Image credit: Getty Images)
5km later, he had only shed 20 seconds to reduced peloton, still led by Uno-X. Of greater concern for the lone leader, though, was the remains of the breakaway, 10 of whom had come together in working to chase Van der Poel down.
The seconds ebbed away as the kilometres ticked down, before the larger group made contact with the Dutchman in the green jersey 16km from the finish. The climb to Mont-Cenis loomed, and it was an ascent too far for Van der Poel, who swiftly went out the back of the group containing Kuss, Van Gils, Foss, Romeo, Martinez, Healy, Mas, Paret-Peintre, Armirail, and Lutsenko.
The climbers wouldn't stay together for long either, however. The early slopes of the Dauphiné's final climb saw Kuss, Van Gils, Martinez, Healy, Mas, and Paret-Peintre come to the forefront.
They'd lead the race towards the final 10km, though by that point Martinez and Mas had leapt away at the front, with Healy leading the chase. 1:40 down the mountain, the peloton lurked,
The GC group – Wellens with Pogačar, Jorgenson and Tulett with Vingegaard, plus Lipowitz, Evenepoel, Carlos Rodríguez, Tobias Halland Johannessen, and Guillaume Martin – closed in as the top of the mountain neared, passing the breakaway men as they did.
At 7km to go, just four GC men remained, with Pogačar joined by Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Johannessen at 55 seconds behind Martinez, who had jumped to leave Mas behind a kilometre earlier.
The Frenchman was on his way to a big victory, but behind him Vingegaard was making one last push, accelerating away from Evenepoel and Johannessen but, crucially, not Pogačar. The duo pushed back the last survivors of the break – Healy, Kuss, Mas – but Martinez remained in front, and neither man in yellow could be separated.
After Martinez crested the summit, the flatter road of the stage's final 5km reassured him that the win was in the bag. He hit the final kilometre with 30 seconds in hand over Pogačar and Vingegaard, leaving him with time to celebrate his second WorldTour victory.
Behind him, Pogačar lead-out the two-man sprint for second place. There was no sprint in the end, however, with the champion offering no resistance as Vingegaard started and aborted a full-on sprint for the placing.
Vingegaard, Pogačar, and Lipowitz fill out the final podium at the race's end (Image credit: Getty Images)
Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired full-time. Before joining the team, she had written for numerous major publications in the cycling world, including Cycling Weekly and Rouleur.
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