Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) has reflected on the major effort required to stay up the road for 170km on stage 3 at Criterium du Dauphiné. Though his gains on the general classification man looked like they would be well above one minute with just 10km to go, the peloton trimmed that back by the finish.
In the end, the Irishman was on the back foot in the final, finding himself on the wrong side of the splits when the 10-man breakaway broke up approaching the finish. And though solo winner Iván Romeo (Movistar Team) gained 1:08 on the remains of the peloton, the five-man group Dunbar was in gained a more modest 41 seconds.
Still, after finishing in 10th place on the day, the time gained should offer a cushion as he goes into tomorrow's 17.4km TT, as long as he can recover from his exertions today. He was in an initial 13-man group that went clear about 35km into the stage, after two early climbs had been negotiated.
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"I think on stages like that, if it does kick off on the climbs and gets a bit harder it's just natural that you end up being in some big moves," Dunbar said.
"Then the sprint came up and there was still no breakaway and the top guys were sprinting for it. So I just followed and the bunch split and that's how the break went really.
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"There's just guys (who) rolled off the front and it ended up being quite a strong break of 13 guys. We rode well together, stayed away to the finish, a big effort."
In that breakaway moved with Dunbar were: Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty). Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Axel Laurance, Michael Leonard (Ineos Grenadiers), Ivan Romeo (Movistar), Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ), Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech) and Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies).
They still had 1:40 with 20km remaining when they began attacking each other, with anyone able to have a go off front doing so, certain that they must get away from van der Poel to have any chance of taking the spoils.
It was Romeo, last year's U23 TT winner at the World Championships, who managed to give the others the slip with just over 5km to go. He rode to a solo win, to also claim the yellow jersey.
The 21-year-old Spanish rider finished 14 seconds up Harold Tejada (XDS Astana Team) 2nd on the stage, Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty) 3rd and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) 4th.
The other remaining riders from the breakaway were a further 13 seconds back, with Dunbar at the rear of that group and finishing 10th on the stage. He is now 6th overall some 37 seconds down on the new race leader.
