Criterium du Dauphine: Primoz Roglic wins thrilling stage 6 and takes over race lead as Remco Evenepoel cracks

Stage 6 of the Criterium du Dauphiné gave way to a very exciting summit finish. As Remco Evenepoel struggled, Primoz Roglic stormed into a brilliant victory at Le Collet d'Allevard, to take over the yellow jersey as well.

The first day in the mountains was always going to be an important one, but specially after a day where many GC riders crashed. A few did not start in the day, including Juan Ayuso who was in the fight for the yellow jersey. Romain Grégoire, Alessandro Facellu, Magnus Cort Nielsen, Thibault Guernalec, Arjen Livyns and Mason Hollyman formed the day's breakaway.

This wasn't a lucky break however. In a matter of minutes within the final hours of racing Guernalec and Hollyman crashed. The Frenchman returned to the head of the race, however with 30 kilometers to go the breakaway has taken a wrong turn. The gap lowered from around 3:40 to 2:40, severely cutting the chances of the group to succeed.

Lidl-Trek did most of the work in the peloton, in fact splitting the peloton in this descent - however most riders managed to return. Into the final ascent INEOS Grenadiers entered the climb in front, immediately setting a strong pace, whilst in front Romain Grégoire attacked off the front, closely chased by Magnus Cort Nielsen who had previously won on stage 2.

With 5 kilometers the race blew up with Laurens de Plus launching an attack. Aleksandr Vlasov shortly after made a move of his own, two teams putting pressure on Soudal - Quick-Step who hit the front with Mikel Landa. The gap remained stable at around 15 seconds as Grégoire was caught, but with 3.5 kilometers to go the race situation changed once again.

Giulio Ciccone attacked with Primoz Roglic following. Remco Evenepoel looked in difficulty, with no response, and falling to the back of the GC group which had split to bits. They managed to keep a constant pace with Landa helping the race leader.

With 1.7 kilometers to go Roglic and Ciccone bridged across to the front duo and Vlasov paced them away from the rest (Derek Gee, Matteo Jorgenson and Carlos Rodríguez). Vlasov led the way all the way into the final few hundred meters.

Roglic took over the front of the duo, but in the final sprint he had a very strong sprint, which he used to beat Giulio Ciccone to the line. Vlasov finished third ahead of the chasing group, whilst Evenepoel arrived in 8th place 42 seconds down. Roglic is the new race leader.

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