DISCUSSION Criterium du Dauphiné Stage 5 | Will the crash ruin Remco Evenepoel's aspirations to win the Dauphiné?

The fifth stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné featured a hilly stage with four climbs which, even if not the hardest, provided a great opportunity for the break to succeed and stop the sprinters' hegemony.

Five riders went clear, while Lidl-Trek and Israel tried to control the race behind. During the last climb, Alpecin imposed a hard pace in hopes of dropping the man to beat, Jonathan Milan. The Italian struggled a lot and was dropped in the last kilometre of the climb, but his team put him back in the bunch afterwards.

The breakaway fought until the end, but they were caught with just 2km to go. Lidl-Trek set a perfect leadout for Jonathan Milan, but he couldn't unleash his full power and was defeated by the Israel rider Jake Stewart. Axel Laurance and Søren Wærenskjold completed the podium.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Not much to say regarding the sprint, but I should say it's rather surprising to see Milan struggle in the climbs so much this week. Not a great climber obviously, but despite his weight, he can usually hold his own better than what he's showing.

Today it seemed to cost him the win, as Lidl's leadout was perfect. He seemed to have launched it too late, whilst Jake Stewart with both a perfectly timed sprint and lots of power managed to take a high level victory that he had been building on for a long time.

Evenepoel crashed, and whilst it didn't seem serious, it will raise questions ahead of this important weekend. It would be a shame if it did hamper him in the mountains, as I'm looking forward to see all three racing at their desired level and not be inhibited.

There is not much to say about this fifth stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2025. After an intense time trial, we had a classic sprint with the main peloton.

The breakaway gave everything until the end but had to give up with 2 kilometers to go. Jonathan Milan was the overwhelming favorite, but seems to have paid in the end for the effort he made to stay in the group when Mathieu van der Poel's Alpecin-Deceuninck pulled hard to unhook him.

Great victory for Jake Stewart, who has given the surprise of the week. Remco Evenepoel went down, but it was in the protected area of the last 3 kilometers, he didn't lose any time and doesn't seem to have been hurt physically. Tomorrow will be a crazy stage because Tadej Pogacar is forced to attack and we could see something very big.

Regarding the race, this is the typical Tour de France transition stage. The type of stage I feel that is not worthy of TV time on the Tour and that organizers should seriously consider discarding on future editions. I understand that there should be flat stages on every race, but doing it with barely any intermediate prizes for big distances is a real turn-off.

As for the race itself, it feels like French teams were just ordered to go onto the break just to make the race interesting. They did put on a fight but it was never meant to work.

The race was leading too much towards Lidl-Trek as no other teams made a serious effort to try to drop Jonathan Milan, so he was always going to be the favourite for the stage, until... bad timing came in. Jake Stewart anticipated the final move and stole the win!

Today was all about what lies ahead: following the unusually short time trial on Stage 4, the first real high-mountain test is about to begin. With three decisive summit finishes still to come, tomorrow will provide the first clear insight into the true condition of the contenders.

Remco Evenepoel appeared to have recovered well from his crash. Florian Lipowitz, meanwhile, almost benefited from the chaos, but since the incident occurred within the final five kilometers, it had no consequences for the Belgian.

Evenepoel remains a key figure in the overall classification. His form looks solid, but it remains to be seen whether the effects of the crash will still weigh on him. As for Florian Lipowitz, there is hope that he can deliver another strong performance tomorrow.

After seeing Jonathan Milan struggle as much as he did in climbs during past stages, I thought he would get dropped today as well. But he didn’t and climbed really well. He only lost contact at the end of the final climb, but his team had more than enough time to put him back in the bunch. However, I think the accumulation of efforts made him pay the price, since he never seemed to have that characteristic punch in the sprint.

I am still impressed by Lidl-Trek as a team, they worked during a big part of the stage and had to chase peloton when Milan was dropped. Still after so many efforts, Milan had three teammates in the last kilometre to help him. He wasn’t able to finish the job, but his team deserves a huge applause.

Jake Stewart got his first world tour win, and his fourth as a professional, in an impressive fashion. He came to Dauphiné as the leadout of Pascal Ackermann, but the German never had a chance and even abandoned today after a crash, so Stewart had to step in, and boy he did it, winning with so much authority.

Mathieu van der Poel already knew that today was his last chance to get a victory at this Dauphiné, and we cannot say he didn't try it. He put his team to work in the last climb, knowing that the final section had slopes of more than 8%, but the effort didn't pay off.

Alpecin is a perfectly organized and reliable team, in which everyone knows exactly what their role is. But they have a big problem when they want to set a hard pace in climbs, basically because they don't have a single climber. The whole team is organized around sprints and spring classics, that is their only objective. So in days like today, when they need to drop a man like Milan in the climb, they just don't have enough gas.

There was much nervousness coming into the final roundabout less than 1km from the finish line, and a crash seemed almost inevitable. Everyone was fighting for position, and in the end Remco Evenepoel crashed, alongside some other riders. Luckily neither the yellow jersey nor anyone else seemed hurt, but it always adds some additional stress that is never helpful and might affect him the next days.

Nothing can be said about the rest of the GC guys, the terrain was not hard enough for any of them to think about trying anything. It was just a transition day that they had to overcome with no major setbacks and that is what they did. Tomorrow we should have the first fireworks, time to enjoy, a super weekend is about to start!