{"id":198752,"date":"2025-06-12T09:04:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T09:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=198752"},"modified":"2025-06-12T09:04:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T09:04:20","slug":"evenepoel-wins-dauphine-itt-as-vingegaard-impresses-and-pogacar-disappoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/06\/12\/evenepoel-wins-dauphine-itt-as-vingegaard-impresses-and-pogacar-disappoints\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel Wins Dauphin\u00e9 ITT as Vingegaard Impresses and Poga\u010dar Disappoints"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the three main favorites for the Tour de France riding in it, the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 was always going to be regarded as a preview of the upcoming Grand Tour and examined for potential clues to the relative strengths of the three superstars. So Wednesday\u2019s stage 4, an individual time trial, drew a lot of attention as it is a discipline in which Tadej Poga\u010dar, Jonas Vingegaard, and Remco Evenepoel all excel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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And the stage lived up to expectations \u2013 and provided a few surprises as well. But it was no surprise that Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), the reigning world and Olympic ITT champion, won the stage, which was run over a 17.4 km course from Charmes-sur-Rh\u00f4ne to Saint-P\u00e9ray. If there were any doubts about his fitness, the Belgian rider laid them to rest with a dominant performance. He now leads the race by 4 seconds over the surprising young German Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe), with Movistar\u2019s Iv\u00e1n Romeo sitting third, at 9 seconds.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard (Visma\u2013Lease a Bike) was almost as impressive, as he finished second, 21 seconds behind the winner. The first surprise was the name of the third-place finisher, Vingegaard\u2019s teammate Matteo Jorgenson, who finished 38 seconds adrift and continues to show that he is becoming a superb cyclist and will be invaluable to Vingegaard\u2019s quest to win a third Tour de France.<\/p>\n

The biggest surprise was the performance of Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG), who finished fourth, 49 seconds behind Evenepoel and only 8 seconds ahead of Lipowitz. He now ranks eighth in the GC, 38 seconds behind the leader. Assuming that everyone will still improve before the start of the Tour, on July 5, this could be a worrying sign for the Slovenian.<\/p>\n

There are two ITTs in the Tour: the stage 5 time trial will be run over a pretty flat 33 km course, while most of the stage 13 10.9 km ITT consists of a climb to the finish at Peyragudes (8 km @ 7.9%), in the French Pyrenees. If the GC decision is not made in the mountain stages, the ITTs could play an important role in the final GC standings.<\/p>\n

A word should also be said about the performance of the \u201cFourth Superstar,\u201d Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who excels at every aspect of cycling except for climbing and, until Wednesday, time trialing. But he rode a superb race, finishing sixth, 1:02 behind the winner and is now fourth in the GC, at 14 seconds.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel said after the race he hadn\u2019t expected to have such big gaps over his rivals. “I think it means that I did a really good time trial,\u201d he said on TNT Sports. \u201cOn the flat, on the uphill and the small descent part I think I did everything [my team and I] spoke about and discussed. Like I said already yesterday, I really wanted to focus just on the stage win, and after that we were going to see on the GC. This morning we really did not expect to take [the] yellow [jersey], especially with the gap on [Romeo] and Lipowitz. But it just means that I did a good time trial and that we can only be happy and proud with the performance and the result of today.”<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Crite\u0301rium Du Dauphine (@criteriumdudauphine)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n