Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) has continued his near perfect build up towards his Tour de France defence next month, winning his second stage of Critérium du Dauphiné today on the summit finish of Col de la Croix de Fer.
The Dane has now extended his lead in the general classification to over two minutes on his nearest rivals, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën Team) and Jai Hindley (Bora-hansgrohe).
Vingegaard made his move with just over 5km to ago, attacking hard off the front of the select group after team mate Attila Valter peeled off the front. While Yates was on Vingegaard's wheel, he made only a half-hearted effort to respond, with the Dane immediately pulling clear but Yates also dropping the others in the group.
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Vingegaard's efforts once solo were perhaps more modest than one might have expected as he had just 18 seconds on Yates going under the 1km to go marker. However, he let the throttle out a let more in that last kilometre, crossing the line some 41 seconds up on Yates, with Hindley 3rd at 53 seconds and O'Connor 4th at 10:04. The Australian was just six seconds ahead of a seven-man group led in by young British rider Max Poole (Team DSM).
Ireland's Sam Bennett and Ryan Mullen, both of Bora-hansgrohe, are now riding these hilly stages in a bid to gain condition for a hoped-for ride at the Tour de France next month. Bennett was 105th and Mullen 106th on the stage, both in a group at 29:16.
The race concludes tomorrow with another stage for the climbers. The route takes the riders 152.8km from Le Pont-de-Claix›La Bastille to Grenoble Alpes Métropole.
