Primoz Roglic underlined his credentials as one of the favourites for the Tour de France this year by winning the Critérium du Dauphiné.
With his Slovenian compatriot and two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogacar absent for this race, Roglic cruised to victory on the back of a dominant showing by Jumbo-Visma on the mountainous stages.
With nobody able to match their pace on the final climb, Roglic and his teammate Jonas Vingegaard crossed the finish line holding hands, the Danish rider taking the stage win and second place overall.
The Jumbo-Visma duo were in the breakaway group of riders on the eighth and final stage – a 137.5km ride from Saint-Alban-Leysse to a summit finish at Plateau de Solaison. The week-long race serves as a key warm-up for the Tour de France, which starts on July 1st.
“I finally won some races in France so it’s super nice,” Roglic said. “It wasn’t just us two, it was the whole team who had everything under control from the start.
“Jonas was super strong on the last climb and it’s crazy, an incredible day for our team. As you can see, things are going in the right direction so we can be confident. We have some more time, some more work to do and should be ready for the Tour.”
Australian rider Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroën) finished third on the final stage and third in the general classification, more than a minute behind Vingegaard. British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart finished fourth for Ineos Grenadiers, a further six seconds behind O’Connor.
“It was quite incredible. We had the plan that I should attack and he [Roglic] should follow me and we wanted to see if we could drop everyone,” said Vingegaard. “We succeeded with that so I think we can be very happy and proud with what happened today . . . to win a stage and finish second overall is a very, very nice result.”
