Tadej Pogacar soars again at Valmeinier 1800 to dominate Critérium du Dauphiné stage 7

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) delivered another solo exhibition at the Critérium du Dauphiné to win stage 7 atop Valmeinier 1800 and increase his grip on the yellow jersey.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) again finished second on the day, and although he limited his losses on Pogačar to a creditable 14 seconds, he was unable to live with the Slovenian’s searing acceleration for the second successive day.

Visma | Lease a Bike had looked to isolate Pogačar on a day that included the climbs of the Col de la Madeleine and Col de la Croix de Fer, and Sepp Kuss was the first man to attack from the yellow jersey group on the final ascent.

Pogačar, however, figured that attack was the best form of defence. After teammate Pavel Sivakov brought Kuss to heel with 12km to go, Pogačar unleashed a vicious acceleration. Vingegaard could only follow for barely more than 100m before he relented.

At first, it looked as though Pogačar might inflict a defeat of minutes on Vingegaard, but the Dane gamely kept his deficit at 10 seconds for 2km or so. As the climb wore on, however, Pogačar began to pull away again, building a maximum lead of 30 seconds. Vingegaard finished strongly to reduce the gap in the finale but it was clear, too, that Pogačar had eased off the gas by then.

Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) impressed once again in taking third on the stage, 1:21 down, while it was a trying afternoon for Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), who was distanced by Pogačar’s acceleration. The Belgian came home 2:39 down.

With one stage remaining, Pogačar leads Vingegaard by 1:01 in the overall standings, with Lipowitz third at 2:21.

“Today we wanted to take control on all the climbs, but Visma tried with all the attacks,” Pogačar said. “It was sort of defence not to get attacked by everyone from Visma, so I launched it and I maintained a good pace to the top. I was really happy I could defend the jersey like this.

“For sure today Jonas was really strong but I also didn’t want to go too deep or myself. It was super hot and along climb.”

Stage 7 offered a different kind of test to what had come so far at this Critérium du Dauphiné. “A real Tour de France stage,” was Pogačar’s assessment before the start, and the racing was intense from the moment the flag dropped and the peloton hit the foot of the mighty Col de la Madeleine.

Visma | Lease a Bike set out their stall by sending Victor Campenaerts up the road at the base of the Madeleine, and when he was pegged back, Sepp Kuss (Visma | Lease a Bike) was part of the sizeable group that forged clear.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG were relucent to grant Kuss too much leeway, but the break still established itself, cresting the Madeleine with 45 seconds in hand on the yellow jersey group. Kuss was joined out in front by Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep), Santiago Buitrago, Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Iván Romeo (Movistar), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Clément Braz Afonso (Groupama-FDJ), Alexey Lutsenko (Israel Premier Tech), Romain Bardet, Romain Combaud, Juan Guillermo Martinez (Picnic-PostNL), Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty) and Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies).

The leaders had 1:40 by the time they got midway up the Col de la Croix de Fer, though the group was beginning to fragment. The enterprising Sergio Higuita (Astana) and Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ) bridged up on the climb, but the intensity was also ratcheting upwards in the yellow jersey group. By the time Buitraigo led over the summit, he had only Higuita, Bardet and Martinez for company.

The yellow jersey group, meanwhile, was barely half a minute behind, and it was striking that Pogačar was increasingly isolated, with only Pavel Sivakov for company. By contrast, Vingegaard had Matteo Jorgenson and Kuss, who dropped back from the break, and Visma’s clear hope was to find a way to outflank Pogačar in the finale.

"They attacked towards the top of Croix de Fer and then they wanted to drop me on the downhill," Pogačar said. "They went a little bit dangerous on the first couple of kilometres, I did not like that, but it’s modern cycling."

Bardet slipped away from his erstwhile breakaway companions on the descent off the Croix de Fer, but by then, the 20-strong yellow jersey group had closed to within 20 seconds, and it was clear that the stage would come down once more to a slugging match between the big favourites on the final haul to the line.

Sivakov worked for Pogačar in the valley leading up to climb, but surprisingly it was Decathlon-AG2R who took up the reins at the foot of the ascent. Their effort doomed the retiring Bardet’s effort, but they were soon superseded by the Visma-UAE battle.

Visma looked to make their numbers count by sending Kuss up to the road, but Pogačar’s individual gifts brooked no argument, as he soloed to the 98th win of his career.