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Stage 1 of the 2015 Criterium Du Dauphine has been taken out by Peter Kennaugh (Team Sky) after he attacked with a bunch of other riders in the closing stages and proved the strongest, attacking again in the final three kilometres.
For most of the day a breakaway of Maarten Wijnants (Lotto – Jumb0), Romain Guillemois (Europcar), Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN) and Bjorn Thurau (Bora) held court. They escaped after 11 km and at one point had a maximum advantage of 7:20 on the peloton.
However, that wasn’t the first of the action on the day. A crash after 10 riders claimed the first victim of the race as Gert Dockx (Lotto – Soudal) was confirmed to have a broken collarbone and elbow, withdrawing from the race.
The main action out on the road however were the numerous king of the mountains climbs. A circuit, lapped six times plus another two climbs meant there was a total of eight climbs, although none were ranked above a category 3.
The early climbs were all taken out by Teklehaimanot and he will wear the king of the mountains jersey tomorrow.
As the stage continued it became clear that the peloton were not at all organised. The team on the front seemed to be swapping around every couple of minutes and no team wanted to commit to the chase.
Eventually Thurau launched an attack out of the breakaway with just under 30km to go, joined by Teklehaimanot. They rode away from the other two riders and held 1:30 on the peloton with 20km to go.
On the final ascent of the cote du Villard, the peloton blew up as attacks flew. Daniel Oss was the key man to get things cracking after chasing down a Tony Martin attack, as Thurau dropped Teklehaimanot up front.
Coming off the climb a five-rider group featuring Andy Grivko (Astana), Kenaugh (Sky), Marcel Wyss (IAM), John Izagirre (Movistar) and Oss (BMC) were able to go clear. They caught Tharau and looked to be holding the peloton at bay, until the group finally got organised and cut the breakaway down.
Just before they got caught, Kennaugh decided he was going to be the last in the lead and attacked. He gained an advantage and put his head down for the finish.
Oss attacked again out of the peloton, and looked like he was going to bridge the gap to Kennaugh, but got pulled back by the peloton.
In the final 500 metres Kennaugh got out of the saddle and gave it everything he had to hold on by two seconds against Sacha Modolo (Lampre), who finished second and Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN) who finished third.
In the end an incredible performance by Kennaugh against a disorganised peloton.
The major lead up race to the Tour de France, the Criterium Du Dauphine begins tonight with an all-star field of riders including Alejandro Valverde, Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and last year’s winner Andrew Talansky.
Stage 1 will take the riders on a 132km rolling journey from Ugine to Albertville where the first yellow jersey of the race will be decided. Join The Roar for live coverage of the race from 8:20pm (AEST) on Sunday evening.
With the biggest race on the cycling calendar just around the corner the Dauphine promises to be a cracker. A similar start list will line up here to what we will see at the Tour de France although at the time of writing it would appear last year’s Giro d’Italia winner and probable Movistar team leader at the Tour Nairo Quintana will not line up for the race.
Stage one will be quite an interesting one to see who is going to take out the first yellow jersey of the race. With eight categorised climbs on route in just 132km of racing it would appear to be quite a difficult stage.
However that is before it is taken into account that the longest climb is 2.3km and the same climb of the Cote du Villard wich is just 1.2km in length is climbed six times. This climb however will be quite a leg burner at an average gradient of 8.7%. It looks like it will be quite hard for any pure sprinters to really make it over the climbs on the day.
The other two climbs on route are the Cote d’Esserts-Blay which is category four and comes after just 17km of racing whilst the Cote du Cruet is the longest climb as discussed above and comes after 40km of racing. The Cote du Villard comes with in order 96, 76, 60, 44, 29 and 13km to go. The rest of the circuit is relitavely flat and therefore with the final summit coming at just 13km to go the winner could well be the best descended in the peloton, with quite a steep descent off the climb.
A breakaway is certainly another option that could be explored, although it seems unlikely being stage one. The sprinters teams will try and keep their men there but this also seems unlikely. In saying that certain sprinters who can get over climbs such as Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN), Daryl Impey (Orica) and Ramunas Navardauskas (Cannondale – Garmin) could be in with massive chances in this stage.
Pure climbers again look almost out of the question and will just try and stay in contact with the likes of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Joaqium Rodgriguez (Katusha). These two guys in particular are opportunist style riders and will try and poach a few seconds before the race gets serious. Simon Gerrans (Orica) is another rider who could challenge and it will be interesting to see their tactics on this stage.
PREDICTION: It looks like it will be somewhat of a reduced peloton bunch sprint for mine. All the climbers will be there but one out of Boassan Hagen, Impey, Gerrans or Navardauskas will be there to contest the sprint. Hard to tip a winner from that lot, but the advantage is with Orica seeing as they should have two very strong and tactically sound riders there in the finale at Albertville.
Join The Roar for our live coverage of stage 1 of the 2015 Criterium Du Dauphine from 8:20pm (AEST) and don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re following along!