DISCUSSION Criterium du Dauphiné Stage 8 & Tour de Suisse Stage 1 | Did Tadej Pogacar refuse to fight for the stage win?

The final stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné was a mountain stage for the third consecutive day, in which Tadej Pogacar had the opportunity to secure the 100th win of his professional career.

A breakaway with very strong riders was established, including Mathieu van der Poel, Enric Mas or Lenny Martinez. Given UAE’s lack of interest in controlling the race, the gap skyrocketed to almost 4 minutes.

Uno – X took control of the peloton and started pulling in order to avoid Enric Mas to overtake Tobias Halland Johannessen in the final GC. Meanwhile, Van der Poel knew he had to attack earlier and arrive solo at the last climb of the day if he wanted to have a shot at taking the stage win, and that’s what he did.

He was caught by the rest of the breakaway in the last 15km, and Enric Mas and Lenny Martinez went clear afterwards. The French rider proved to be stronger and ran away alone, clinching his third win of the season. Behind, Jonas Vingegaard attacked a couple of times in hopes of dropping Tadej Pogacar, but the world champion withstood all the attempts. Both riders arrived second and third to the finish line, and the Slovenian took home the final GC.

The first stage of Tour de Suisse also took place today, being perfectly suited for puncheurs. It was a crazy rainy day, in which a huge breakaway was established and that the peloton could never control. Including important riders for the GC such as Ben O'Connor or Kévin Vauquelin, they stayed together until the final climb of the day.

There, a group of 4 comprised of Romain Grégoire, Bart Lemmen, Kévin Vauquelin and Julian Alaphilippe distanced from the rest of the break companions and fought for the win. In the end, it was Grégoire who created a small gap in a descent, taking more risks than the rest and securing an impressive victory.

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

A podium finish for a German rider in the Dauphiné is a magnificent achievement. On top of that, winning the white jersey bodes very well for the young Florian Lipowitz and German cycling as a whole.

During this Dauphiné, there was simply no matching Tadej Pogacar. His biggest rivals had to bow out at the decisive moments, and Remco Evenepoel in particular is still not fully recovered from his long winter injury. Jonas Vingegaard, on the other hand, improved toward the end, but it will be a major task for him to dislodge this Pogacar from the top spot in the Tour de France.

All in all, it was a great Dauphiné where the big names didn’t shy away from one another, but for German cycling fans, the continued rise of Florian Lipowitz is truly something to look forward to.

Not much to analyse from this stage, as we've seen the top riders at the level we expected of them without any surprise. Tadej Pogacar did not go to his maximum, he just remained in the zone and following wheels to the line whilst others battled between themselves.

Jonas Vingegaard looked good and strong, but simultaneously he didn't really win anything from it, just a matter of confirming good form and consistency and testing out his rivals.

The 'big 3' are all ready for the Tour and looked to be at their best level, now it's a matter of getting to Lille and seeing if they will have mishaps before hitting the mountains in July.

Tadej Pogacar decided that today he didn't want to force to win the stage and Lenny Martinez took advantage of it. Enric Mas showed character with his performance, but it wasn't enough with a combative rider who was at home.

Iván Romeo was brilliant, fundamental in chasing Mathieu van der Poel, who also gave his all today. As for the men in the general classification, Pogacar and Vingegaard showed once again that the difference between them and the rest is too big.

Regarding the Tour de Suisse, if it had happened in a Grand Tour, it would have been a stage for the history books. A breakaway of 28 riders with men who aspire to the final general classification that could have decided part of the race.

Ben O'Connor, as in the Vuelta a España 2024, took advantage of the fact that he was not being counted on much to get away and gain time. Romain Grégoire was titanic, with a performance that could mark this part of his career.

Great day for French cycling with two prestigious victories by riders born in 2003.

First stage of the Tour de Suisse was a lively stage. It was highly attacked from the first kilometres and the peloton broke up into many groups. When the real breakaway formed, there were many strong names at the front:

Felix Grosschartner of the UAE.

Tao Geoghegan Hart, Lennard Kämna and Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek.

Pablo Castrillo and Will Barta of Movistar.

Benoît Cosnefroy of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team.

Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa.

Ben O'Connor, Felix Engelhardt and Luke Durbridge of Jayco.

Julian Alaphilippe from Tudor.

Lorenzo Fortunato and Nicola Conci of Astana.

Warren Barguil of Picnic-PostNL.

Ben Swift of INEOS.

Matej Mohoric of Bahrain.

Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ.

The peloton followed them at 3 minutes for most of the route and never seemed too keen to bring the gap down. After the riders passed the finish line for the first time... it started to rain and thunder heavily, which made life easier for the escapees, because the peloton slowed down.

The real fireworks only came on the final climb. Ben O'Connor came to the front of the group of escapees to set the pace and broke up the group completely. But near the top, Alaphilippe, Grégoire, Vauquelin and Lemmen attacked and O'Connor, who had always been working, stayed in the pits.

On the descent... well, what a descent Grégoire made. Aggressive, burning lines, risking too much on flooded roads. What madness. He gained a margin of 10 seconds and was chased for more than 10 kilometres by the trio that accompanied him. But Grégoire was destined to win today. Alone, he held off the three chasers to raise his arms at the finish.

O'Connor meanwhile lost his spark... and a lot of time to the day's winner in the end. The peloton with the main contenders for the overall came in at just over 3 minutes. Nothing to worry about, if you take into account that the race was chaotic and the cyclists are full of strength, of course. When the going gets tough, everything will change.

It was crystal clear that Tadej Pogacar did just not want to go for the win today. There has been much criticism recently, accusing him of being too greedy because he wins too much. Total and absolute nonsense when we are talking about professional athletes that compete with the primary objective to win. To win as much as possible. But some people think he shouldn’t win as much as he does, not sure for what reason.

Today UAE never showed any interest in controlling the break, which of course makes total sense, as they didn’t really have any reason to do so. It was Uno – X who took the responsibility in order to protect Halland Johannessen, whose fifth place was threatened by Enric Mas. All that work led to the GC group with serious options to steal the stage win from Lenny Martinez, but Pogacar did not try at any moment.

He just followed the timid attacks Vingegaard launched with ease, but never attacked himself, not even once. We all know he could have done it if he wanted, but chose not to. Even if he relayed a few times, he wasn’t bringing any energy, instead he was slowing down the chase. He seemed more interested in contemplating the scenery rather than chasing down Martinez. His 100th professional win will have to wait, although just until July.

Visma sent Sepp Kuss to the break to be a satellite rider for Vingegaard, but he was of little use again. Vingegaard looked good today, maybe better than the past days because Pogacar never tried him. His Dauphiné was pretty strong overall, even if still below Pogacar’s level.

The rest of the GC contenders performed as expected as well, with Remco Evenepoel beating Lipowitz. Good news for the Belgian finally, although being closer to Lipowitz than Pogacar and Vingegaard should be very worrying for him.

Paul Seixas showed terrific form again, what this 18-year-old kid has done at Dauphiné has been beyond impressive. It was such a pity that he crashed uphill…that probably cost him going down from 6th to 8th in the overall GC. Still a terrific result, who would have expected him to finish inside the top 10? We will see him fighting for the Tour in the upcoming years.

Enric Mas made an uncharacteristic move, which is getting into the break. He was also in the uncharacteristic situation of having serious options to win a stage, but once again there was someone else stronger than him.

Lenny Martinez showed weakness at some point of the last climb and lost a few meters, and instead of seizing that opportunity, Mas slowed down and asked the French to pace. Hilarious Mas once again, he never fails to amaze us. Martinez attacked subsequently and never looked back, while Mas faded away. Another missed opportunity to get a victory, that is characteristic.