Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) has taken the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné today after breaking clear alone on the final climb and soloing to victory in Saint Etienne.
Immediately after the start of the 170.5-kilometre stage, De Gendt formed a break with six other riders: Axel Domont (AG2R La Mondiale), Delio Fernandez (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Silvio Herklotz (Bora – Hansgrohe), Angel Madrazo (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Antonio Nibali (Bahrain Merida Pro Cycling Team) and Romain Sicard (Direct Energie).
De Gendt had set his mind on the KOM jersey and the Belgian rider was the first to reach the top of each of the climbs en route.
The front group had a maximum lead of six and a half minutes and with 25 kilometres to go, they still maintained an advantage of three minutes.
In the finale, the riders had to cover three laps of fifteen kilometres, containing a third category climb. De Gendt raised the pace on the second lap and he remained in front with just Domont for company. On the last lap De Gendt also got rid of his last opponent and soloed to victory.
Thanks to his stage win De Gendt leads the overall classification, meaning he takes the first yellow jersey, KOM jersey and also leads the points classification.
Thomas De Gendt: “Before the start of this Dauphiné I had marked a few stages to battle for the KOM jersey. It was my goal to conquer it today and to wear the polka dot jersey the next days, but it will be a different shirt.”
“Quite soon I noticed that I was the strongest man in the front group. Of course you need to make sure to eat sufficiently and to save as much energy as possible. To catch the KOM points I needed to go full gas each time, but at the end of the stage I still had enough power in my legs to attack.”
“When we had four minutes advantage left at the start of the local laps I understood that we had a huge chance of winning the stage. From then on I fully focussed on that goal. At one and a half kilometres from the last top, I dropped Domont. I knew that if I had about fifteen seconds lead at the top, I would win the stage. Then I tried to gain as much seconds on GC as possible. In 2011 I wore the yellow jersey three days at Paris-Nice. That was a wonderful experience. I am very much looking forward to the next days.”
“I must be able to keep the jersey till the time trial. I am now 1’09” ahead of the GC riders. When Froome is in shape, he can definitely ride one minute faster than me on such a time trial course, so we’ll see if I can keep the jersey on Wednesday. Maybe by a few seconds. The stage over Mont du Chat on Friday will be too hard for me. Then I can collect more KOM points though. I now have sixteen and next weekend there are a lot more to conquer.”
De Gendt leads the GC with an advantage of 48 seconds on Axel Domont and 1’03” on Diego Ulissi. All of the race favourites finished in a diminished group 59″ behind De Gendt.
