CRITERIUM DU DAUPHINE DAY-1

June 1 ^st 2024 - 17:24

 KEY POINTS

>A bunch sprint is a possibility in the 172.5-km first stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné, according to course designer Gilles Maignan.

> Belgian champion Remco Evenepoel, recovering from his Tour of the Basque Country crash like 2022 winner Primoz Roglic or France’s Warren Barguil, tackles this Dauphiné with modest ambitions.

> Bora-Hansgrohe have “a good strategy” for the Dauphiné, insists sports director Christian Pömer, without making clear what role recovering Primoz Roglic will have in it.

> Winners of the Criterium du Dauphiné for the last two years, Team Visma-Lease a Bike pin their hopes on Americans Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson to take over from last year’s winner Jonas Vingegaard, still nursing his Tour of the Basque Country injury.

>Spaniards Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) as well as Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) are among the other leading contenders.

GILLES MAIGNAN: “A BUNCH SPRINT IS QUITE POSSIBLE”

While the inaugural stages of the Criterium du Dauphiné can sometimes lead to unexpected results, the course of the first stage around St Pourçain sur Sioule looks ideal for sprinters to seize a rare chance of winning a stage. That is the opinion of race director Gilles Maignan, the man who designed the route, and he expects team Decathlon-AG2R to control the bunch all day. “They don’t really have a GC leader but they took Sam Bennett who seems to be back in great shape. They might try to stop a big breakaway group from going and might find help in the teams of Mads Pedersen and Magnus Cort, who also look like potential winners. For me, a bunch sprint is quite possible,” he said. The stage ends up with a 29-km loop to be ridden twice and the bunch could be split if the weather allows: “The last nine kilometres are in the open and the riders will ride them twice. If the wind blows, there might be echelons that could prevent a sprint to take place and a group of escapees might go all the way.”

REMCO EVENEPOEL: “PATIENCE IS THE KEY”

Back in action at the Criterium du Dauphiné after the dreadful crash which left him with a broken collarbone and a fracture shoulder-blade at the Tour of the Basque Country, Remco Evenepoel claimed he had humble expectations from the week ahead, adding that patience was the key to a full recovery for the Tour de France.

“I believe I must be patient and take each stage as it comes. If I have good results, fair enough, if not, too bad. I just hope to progress and reach a better level with each day. If I manage to get a good result like a stage win it would be great, but I’m not going to go for it like I did in Paris-Nice”, said the Belgian champion, who finished second in the Race to the Sun, winning the final stage.

Evenepoel even claimed he had not looked at the Dauphiné course ahead of the race: “It’s a good example of the expectations I have here!” he said. The Soudal-Quick Step team leader is still aware that a 35-km individual time trial is on the week’s menu and he admitted it would be an important test “to see how my shoulder holds”.

The 2022 world champion explained that his injury, while it might not have looked so serious on paper, had actually affected him a lot, forcing him to focus on his health and recovery in order to reach his best level in July. “When I crashed in Lombardia, we probably rushed my return a little bit. That’s why I think we need patience so as not to seek and find my best form today or next week but to hope to find it at the Tour de France and towards the end of it. We have ideas for it to be the case,” he said

Already asked about his hopes for the Tour de France, Evenepoel said all the pressure would be on Tadej Pogacar, given his impressive victory in the Giro d’Italia. “All the pressure will be on Team UAE, they have the man to beat and they will be the team to beat. There won’t be so much pressure on me and my team. If we manage to follow Tadej, it will already be a victory.”

MATTEO JORGENSON: “NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO HIDE”

Team Visma-Lease a Bike, winners of the Criterium du Dauphiné for the last two years, tackle the 2024 edition with two leaders, both Americans, Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson.  "We're going into this race with GC ambitions for myself and Sepp," Paris-Nice winner Jorgenson told his team’s web site.

"We start with seven strong riders, most of whom have ridden together recently in preparation for the Tour. The competition is very strong with riders like Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and Juan Ayuso. The level will undoubtedly be high, but that will only be good after the last training block."

"The finale is extremely tough. Nobody will be able to hide there. Even Wednesday's time trial will make a difference between the GC contenders", American Jorgenson says of the 35-kilometre test against the clock.

Vuelta champion Sepp Kuss and Jorgenson are all the more eager to do well in the week ahead as Jonas Vingegaard is still nursing the injury sustained at the Tour of the Basque Country in April.

"We want to see how far we can go in the GC,” said sports director Frans Maasen. “At Paris-Nice, Matteo showed he can handle a week-long stage race well. Sepp's qualities have been known for a while. He has been indispensable in our recent successes in several grand tours. Last year's Vuelta was the crowning achievement of his career. Hopefully, he can also be an important part of any success this summer,” the Dutchman said.

CHRISTIAN PÖMER: “ROGLIC IS IN A GOOD MOOD AND WE HAVE A GOOD STRATEGY FOR THE DAUPHINÉ”

Primoz Roglic is back and “in a good mood”, his Bora-Hansgrohe team director Christian Pömer said ahead of the Criterium du Dauphiné, which starts on Sunday in St Pourçain sur Sioule. Winner of the Dauphiné in 2022, the Slovenian was injured in a massive crash at the Tour du Pays Basque in April and is making his return to competition this week.
“Since the crash, he has been training in an altitude camp and it went very well. He’s in very good mood now and eager to prove the shape he showed in the last couple of weeks in the camp,” Pömer said.

“When he raced for the last time at the Tour of the Basque Country, he was in excellent shape. Beating Remco in the opening time trial despite the small incident he had, it was a great performance, but the big goal is the Tour de France and the Dauphiné is just a next step in his preparation,” the Austrian sports director added. Yet he added that the Dauphiné, while an important step in Roglic’s season, was not his primary goal. “He’s back on track and his other opponents, Remco and Jonas, are also better after the crash and they all have the same problem: facing Pogacar in the Tour. Fortunately, even Tadej has to recover sometimes and we’re happy he’s not here.” At the helm of a super strong team for the Dauphiné, Roglic is not the only one to be in a position to have GC ambitions in the race.    “

We have a very strong team here, we also have Jai Hindley here, we have Alex Vlasov. The team for the Tour is a surprise. In modern cycling, you have to be super flexible. We’ll have a good strategy for the Dauphiné and an even better one for the Tour. But we won’t share it with the public,” Pömer said.

CHRISTIAN GUIBERTEAU: “ALL FOR BARGUIL”

Sidelined like several other riders after a crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, Warren Barguil is back in action at the Criterium du Dauphiné, hoping to have recovered enough to be a contender in the GC in the week-long race. “The whole team here has been built around Warren. Like many other riders in the peloton, he was injured in a crash at the Tour of the Basque Country and at Amstel, he said ‘stop’ because we discovered he had fractured a rib,” his DSM-Firmenich sports director Christian Guiberteau said. 

“He hasn’t ridden since so we start in the unknown like many others here, and we are going to use this Dauphiné to know where we stand exactly.” The 32-year-old Barguil returned to his former team DSM this season after four season with French team Arkea and the former Tour de France KOM has already made it in the Top 10 in the Dauphiné, finishing 9th in 2020.

“It is too early to know what our team will be on the Tour de France because of all our current uncertainties even though we know that Romain Bardet, Warren and Fabio are the key riders around which the team will be chosen,” Guiberteau said.   

PHILIPPE MAUDUIT: “AMBITIONS WILL COME AS THE RACE UNFOLDS”

Like many other contenders in this Criterium du Dauphiné, David Gaudu has had an early season marred by injury. The Frenchman, winner of a Dauphiné stage in 2022, crashed in the Gran Camino in February, on Paris-Nice in March and in the Tour du Pays Basque in April, and he is tackling the week-long race hoping to have recovered his best form.

“David spent a lot of time training at altitude,” said his Groupama-FDJ team director Philippe Mauduit. “He looks in a great shape but it is aways difficult to know how bodies are going to react after training at high altitude,” he added. Gaudu was not at his best in the Mercan’tour Classic won by his team-mate Lenny Martinez last week, finishing nearly five minutes adrift.

“He struggled a bit but it’s not a tragedy,” said Mauduit. Asked if the team taken by Groupama-FDJ to the Dauphiné was the same as the one for the Tour de France, he added: “It’s more or less the same team even if in general we take our final team for the Tour half from the Dauphiné and half from the Tour de Suisse.”

“It is even more difficult this year because we had seven riders injured since January, which forced us to change our plans, but a lot of teams are in the same position.” “As for the Dauphiné, ambitions will come as the race unfolds. If David feels well, then he will have ambitions, its’ as simple as that.