Featured image courtesy of A.S.O./ Alex Broadway
Less than a month to go until the Tour de France gets underway, each and every contender who can win the maillot jaune now have some final weeks to prepare. While many riders select the Tour de Suisse as their prefered race to get ready for the Tour, one race in France always acts as the key warm-up race before three weeks chasing the yellow jersey.
The 73rd Critérium du Dauphiné is back to its traditional format after only offering five mountainous stages last year due to COVID. A full week-long route of stages based in southern France featuring some hilly stages, one chance for a sprint, an individual time trial plus some really difficult tests in the Alps.
Past winners and former team-mates Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome both start the race as does young French prospect David Gaudu and Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk.
Defending champion Dani Martínez won’t be starting the race as he’s been riding the Giro d’Italia in support of Egan Bernal. This year’s Dauphiné should be a fascinating contest between three teams who will start as favourites to win the Tour, which starts in less than three weeks time. INEOS Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma and UAE-Team Emirates with Thomas, Kruijswijk and McNulty will be their designated leaders.
With the defending Tour champion Tadej Pogačar opting to ride neither the Dauphiné or the Tour de Suisse and go for his home Tour of Slovenia, he will a missing name that some GC contenders would’ve been hoping to take on. Primož Roglič is another name nowhere to be seen, he isn’t scheduled to race until the Tour begins on Saturday 26th June.
The route
The race starts in the Auvergne with a rolling stage based on Issoire that includes a hilly circuit. The first leader’s jersey is likely to go to a puncheur or maybe a sprinter who can gets over climbs as well. Stage 2 starts in Brioude and is harder than Stage 1 as it includes the first-category Col de Peyra Taillade. The final 10 km include two hills to spice it up.
This year’s race hardly starts off easy with the third stage offering more hills. The finale in Saint-Haon-Le-Vieux, features a false flat and could produce a puncheur and sprinter head-to-head. After no time trials last year, the race of truth returns with a 16.4 km TT between Firminy and Roche la Moliere. If the favourites have significant time gaps already then they could either increase or close here. With Rohan Dennis, Richie Porte, Geraint Thomas as well as Tao Geoghegan Hart, expect INEOS to be dominant on Stage 4.
The race moves east into the Rhône valley on day five that once again has hills, the last of them the second-category Côte de Montrebut, which averages 12 per cent for 1.3 kilometres. It is close to the finish so expect this one to be explosive.
For the remaining three stages it is mountains all the way to the end. The first of three sees the riders from Loriol-sur-Drôme to Le Sappey-en-Chartreuse. There are four categorised climbs in the final 50 km, starting with the second-cat Col de la Placette and Col de Porte, a mirror to last year’s summit where Primož Roglič was the winner. Expect Jumbo-Visma to possibly win again with last year’s stage winner Sepp Kuss looking to build up form before the Tour.
The penultimate stage features the high altitude Col du Pré and Cormet de Roselend climbs which will be the same route as Stage 8 of this year’s Tour. After descending to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, the riders will then tackle the finale at La Plagne.
Stage 8 to Les Gets will be another brute. The second-category Col des Aravis and the first-category Col de la Colombière. The last big test is the HC-rated Col de Joux Plane, 11.6 km at 8.5 %. From its summit, the riders will drop into Morzine and then climb to the finish.
The riders to watch
The Giro d’Italia has concluded, the Dauphiné begins in early June and the Tour moved forward this year because of a delayed Tokyo Olympics. Lots of riders taking part in the Giro, the Dauphiné (and other pre-Tour races), plus the Tour, will all have their eyes on the Olympic road race.
With that in mind it is interesting to see that both last year’s Tour de France defending champion and runner-up will not be taking part in the race – Tadej Pogačar heading to the Tour of Slovenia and Primož Roglič skipping pre-Tour racing overall. While both Slovenian riders won’t be tested against others, it won’t take away from what look sets to be another fascinating Dauphiné.
Former Dauphiné winner in 2018, Geraint Thomas then went on to win the Tour that same year. Thomas leads INEOS Grenadiers with an aim to do as best as he can at this race and then go and win the yellow jersey for a second time. Now 35-years-of-age, this might be the best opportunity for Thomas to actually go and get another Grand Tour victory. At the Tour de Romandie back in April he looked on form and when he can climb, the Welshman can compete.
There might be some disappointment that he won’t get the chance to test himself against both Roglič and Pogačar at the same time. He has already gone up against the current Tour champion and even had the legs to follow some important moves at Tirreno-Adriatico.
Geraint Thomas will be joined by last year’s third-placed Tour de France rider Richie Porte. He is undoubtedly going to start the Grand Départ in June but with a different aim to sacrifice himself for others. The Australian is one of the best climbers in the peloton and to add to Thomas’s chances last year’s Giro champion Tao Geoghegan Hart also arrives in the Auvergne. INEOS have plenty of cards to play at this Dauphiné as they warm up for the race they’re looking to win back.
He used to ride for the INEOS Grenadiers but for Israel Start-Up Nation, Chris Froome starts as a rider who has won the Dauphiné three times before. Adding a fourth is unlikely but Froome will be a must watch to see how he’s progressing after a horror crash at this very race in 2019.
Froome is a four-times Tour de France champion, the chances of him becoming a five-times winner is very unlikely considering the opposition. He has kept on riding on and no matter how he performs at the Dauphiné he will line-up at the Tour for his new team. Chris Froome will be impossible to ignore and in the end it is very good to see him racing.
Similar to Froome, Colombian climber Nairo Quintana is another rider who you really cannot take out of the equation. Quintana is an unmissable rider to watch at the best and worst of times. On a good day he can attack and stay away but on others he cannot keep pace and then loses momentum. Last year he produced some decent wins in France at the Tour de la Provence, Tour du Var, a summit finish at Paris-Nice, and later third at the Tour de l’Ain. A knee injury then ruined any chance he had at this race and then the Tour.
Second at the 2017 Giro was the last time Nairo Quintana finished on a Grand Tour podium. Is he past his best? It depends on which Quintana turns up at this Dauphiné.
With no Roglič, Jumbo-Visma arrive in France with former Tour de France podium winner Steven Kruijswijk. The Dutchman will get full team leadership responsibility, looking to do the best he possibly can in preparation for the Tour. Kruijswijk is unlikely to win the Tour this July but more than anything this year’s Dauphiné, after unfortunately having to leave last year because of crash, will be seen as testing the legs on mountains.
This year, Kruijswijk hasn’t even finished in the top 20 of a race, having taken part in Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Tour de Romandie. A better showing should come with three mountain stages waiting as well as Sepp Kuss and Jonas Vingegaard alongside Kruijswijk to show what they are capable of before the Tour.
Young Frenchman David Gaudu lines up for Groupama-FDJ as sole leader and looks set to the great French hope for the Tour de France alongside world champion Julian Alaphilippe. No Thibaut Pinot or Romain Bardet in the race this year means at Gaudu in particular will have the weight of his nation on his shoulders. It is perhaps a big ask but after riding in the shadow of Pinot at Groupama-FDJ for so many years, this is his time to shine.
Gaudu won two stages at the Vuelta last year so the signs are there that the 24-year-old can excel when the going gets tough. He has also carried some of that form into 2021 with a stage win at Itzulia Basque Country back in April, one of the hardest stage races to prep for a Grand Tour. The Frenchman with the most prestige attached, David Gaudu is a man to watch.
The 73rd Critérium du Dauphiné is about to start, a race that always provides thrills and spills as the perfect race to prepare for the Tour de France. Winning the race overall can be a huge stepping stone to winning the maillot jaune, in fact those that win the race overall tend to go on and win in Paris come Stage 21.
It all depends on form and how you feel but more importantly its a look at the contenders for the second Grand Tour this season.
