Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) may have gained some time on yesterday's stage 3 at Criterium du Dauphiné by going in the breakaway, but race favourite Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) said he was very keen not to allow the Irish rider get an advantage of any significance.
Even close to the finish of the stage, it looked like Dunbar and all of the riders he was with would take more than a minute on the big general classification riders. That was despite Pogačar's team having taken up the chase on the front of the bunch in pursuit of the 170km breakaway for fear Dunbar would gain a lot of time.
But by the finish, Dunbar took only 41 seconds and Pogačar said in his remarks after the stage the day was very tough, akin to a hard day at the Tour de France, and he wanted to make sure neither Dunbar nor Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) were allowed make a significant move in the general classification.
Advertisement
"It was a proper Tour de France stage today, hard all day," he said. "We committed to work as a team, and we did a super job. We knew that if we were alone, it was going to be hard to control this kind of breakaway, especially with Eddie Dunbar and Florian Lipowitz in it."
Related News
He added that with riders like Dunbar and Lipowitz "you shouldn't give them too much advantage". He added QuickStep-Soudal also came to the same conclusion and they "threw one guy in to help" with the chase.
"In the middle, Visma gave a little bit of help but I guess they're not worried about the other contenders and we did a really good team effort today. It was a good day out there for the team to get ready for the Tour, a proper hard Tour de France stage."
He also said with Dunbar and Lipowitz up the road, and possibly gaining time in the GC "you can lose two places easily like this" and he believed Visma-Lease a Bike and the teams of the other overall contenders should have told some of their riders to aid the chase.
"You cannot underestimate guys like today's in the breakaway. You need to give them credit. Today they rode super, super good in the front. The breakaway was really strong. There should have been more people worried behind, not just the top three teams but some other teams as well".
He believed he was the rider who should have been least concerned about the breakaway men, saying he didn't "worry about being stressed to much". And while his team had "burned more riders than we were hoping for" the Dauphiné was "good training for the Tour".
