Magnus Cort beats Armirail and the fog
June 3 rd 2024 - 17:04
Magnus Cort came out of the fog to upstage French escapee Bruno Armirail in the last stretch, win the 142-km second stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné at Col de la Loge and complete a sweep of stages on French roads. Already a stage winner on the Tour de France and Paris-Nice, the most famous moustache in the peloton took advantage of the perfect work by his Uno-X team in the final climb to cross the line ahead of Primoz Roglic (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Paris-Nice winner Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike). The Dane took the yellow and blue jersey away from compatriot Mads Pedersen, who lost ground in the climb to Col de la Loge.
Five-man breakaway
The real start was given at 13:30 to 152 riders. Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-Ag2R), Mathis Le Berre (Arkea), Jonas Gregaard (Lotto Dstny), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin) and Filippo Conca (Q36.5) parted with the pack from the flag and their lead quickly increased to reach a maximum of 5:20 after 34 km. In the first of four climbs of the day, Cote de Fagot (Km 45.1, 3rd cat), Le Berre took the two points on offer ahead of Meurisse while the peloton was 4:25 adrift. The Frenchman collected five more on the Col de Saint-Thomas (Km 67.4) to take the lead in the KOM classification.
Le Berre collects KOM points
The intermediate sprint of the day in St Thurin (km 100.9) went to Filippo Conca, who picked the ten points and three seconds up for grabs ahead of Armirail and Meurisse. At that stage, the escapees lead was down to 3:10. In the penultimate climb, Cote de St Georges en Couzan, Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ) raised the tempo at the front of the pack and the peloton dropped several riders, including polka-dot jersey holder Mark Donovan. At the top, Le Berre picked five more points as the pack was just a minute behind and made sure to take the KOM jersey away from the Briton.
Armirail goes
At the bottom of the final climb, Col de la Croix Ladret, Armirail attacked on his own and dropped his former breakaway companions, who were reined in by the pack with 8 km to go. Race leader Mads Pedersen was dropped by the peloton 500 metres from the top of the last hill and the French escapee held on as the main GC riders kept watching each other. Armirail retained a 25 seconds lead with 5 km to go and was still leading the way with 300 metres left as the fog made the visibility very poor. He hardly saw the peloton rush past, led by Magnus Cort, who outpaced Roglic and the other favourites to win his first race in his new Uno-X colours.
