Tour de l'Ain: Roglic seals overall title with victory on Grand Colombier

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Primož Roglič and his Jumbo-Visma team will head to the Critérium du Dauphiné with momentum very much on their side after the Slovene claimed his second consecutive stage win at the Tour de l'Ain, his success on the Grand Colombier confirming him as the overall victor.

Going head to head with main rival Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) in the final 300 metres to the stage finish atop the Grand Colombier, Roglič brushed aside the Colombian's challenge and eased to victory after his teammates had once again shown their collective strength. Bernal's second place confirmed him as runner-up on GC, with Nairo Quintana moving up to fill the final place on the podium after finishing third on the day.

Ineos did all they could to make things difficult for Roglič and Jumbo-Visma, Geraint Thomas setting a fast tempo into the foot of the final 17-kilometre ascent, where first Andrey Amador, then Chris Froome, and finally Jonathan Castroviejo took up the pace-making. Yet when Castroviejo pulled aside with seven kilometres to the summit, Bernal found himself with four Jumbo-Visma riders to deal with.

Throughout the final section of the climb, Roglič looked comfortable and full of confidence, gliding up and down the line to size up Bernal. At the same time, the Colombian seemed well short of his best, occasionally losing contact with the yellow jersey group, almost always at the back of the line.

Bernal did launch from the rear of the group in the final kilometre, dispatching everyone but Roglič before the Jumbo-Visma leader swept clear to take a second stage win in three days, having earlier lost out only very narrowly in the opening day sprint finale to Andrea Bagioli (Deceuninck-Quick Step).

"Today was again a hard day. Ineos did a really hard race with a hard tempo on all the climbs, but our team did a great job again, so I was able to just finish it," said Roglič.

Asked for his thoughts looking ahead to the Dauphiné, which starts on Wednesday, he replied: "Every race is nice to do after this lockdown, so I'm also looking forward to another one.

"My main ambition for the Tour de France is to put myself on as high a level as possible, and to try to grow together with the team and do as good a job as we can. That's the main goal."

How it unfolded

The final stage began with a flurry of attacks before a dozen riders managed to break the elastic and get clear of the peloton. The group comprised Romain Seigle and Leo Vincent (Groupama-FDJ), stage one winner Bagioli and his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Mauri Vansevenant, mountains leader Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Carl Fredrik Hagen (Lotto Soudal), Will Barta, Joey Rosskopf and Georg Zimmermann (CCC Team), Mads Schmidt Würtz (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Sunweb's Sam Oomen and Thymen Arensman.

The stage's trio of tough climbs were packed into the second half of the stage. On the second of them, the first-category Col de la Biche, Bagioli went away on his own as the bunch started to close in. Bernard joined him towards the summit and the pair crossed it with a 90-second advantage over the Ineos-led peloton.

Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas set a cracking pace at the head of the bunch in the valley to the foot of the Grand Colombier, cutting the gap to the two leaders to a minute. At the foot of the final ascent, the Welshman immediately peeled aside and left the pace-making to Costa Rican teammate Amador.

With three of the 17 kilometres of the Grand Colombier covered, Amador led a much-slimmed-down yellow jersey group past Bernard and Bagioli, the two breakaways fist-bumping to acknowledge their collaboration. A kilometre later, Amador swung aside to leave Castroviejo setting the pace.

Froome took over from the Spaniard at the front with 11.5km left, the four-time Tour de France winner doing a long stint at the head of the line, his efforts perhaps helping to keep alive his hopes of starting the Tour later this month. With 9km left, Froome delivered a final burst of speed and handed responsibility for pace-making back to Castroviejo.

Almost immediately, though, the Spaniard had to drop back to pace Bernal, who had slipped off the back of the group together with Steven Kruiswijk. The Ineos domestique led the Colombian back into the group, then briefly returned to the front of the group before letting Jumbo take responsibility for setting the tempo, with Tom Dumoulin in the vanguard.

Seven kilometres from home, Castroviejo too was dropped, leaving Bernal up against four Jumbo riders, as well as Quintana, Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Guillaume Martin (Cofidis). Soon after, Roglič dropped back through the group to get a good look at Bernal. Was the Colombian bluffing? In difficulty? Roglič observed him briefly, then breezed back up the line, Bernal following but not as easily.

The finale fireworks finally kicked off three kilometres from the line. Porte attacked, but Jumbo quickly chased him down. Kruiswijk and Dan Martin were dropped in this flurry, and Bernal was briefly too as Jumbo's George Bennett pushed on hard at the front, his tempo too much for Dumoulin, who also dropped back.

With 1.8km to go, Porte attacked again. Once more Bennett was quick to respond. The Australian went a third time just inside the kilometre arch, and then once more. But Bennett kept returning to the front of the group, maintaining control until Bernal made his move. It was brave, but doomed. Roglič was simply too strong.  

Results

General classification