"I'm not in any pain, I just have a graze on my right knee" - Remco Evenepoel brushes off late crash on stage 5 of the Dauphine

Stage 5 of the 2025 Criterium du Dauphiné looked to be heading towards a relatively calm finale for the GC contenders. Inside the final couple of kilometres however, none other than the Maillot Jaune himself Remco Evenepoel got caught up in a crash.

Whilst he did hit the tarmac and was left with visible abrasions to his jersey, Evenepoel was quickly back up on his bike and with the incident happening inside the safety of the final 5km, no time loss was suffered by the Soudal - Quick-Step. Nevertheless, it's a moment of added stress at a time when he would have liked to have avoided it, especially given what is to come at the Dauphine this weekend.

"I don't really have an explanation for what happened when I fell in the finale," Evenepoel admitted honestly in his post-stage interview afterwards. "But my hands were really wet and I lost my grip on the handlebars. In any case, I'm not in any pain, I just have a graze on my right knee, but it won't affect me going forward."

And it is indeed a very big weekend for Evenepoel coming up as he looks to defend the Yellow Jersey in the high mountains against challengers such as Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. "We'll need to be ready for tomorrow, as it will be the first big test in the battle we're going to face over the next three days," previews the Belgian. "The final climb is maybe twenty minutes of effort at most, which is nothing compared to what we'll have on Saturday. In any case, there will certainly be a lot of riders trying to break away, so it will be very lively at the start. And then we'll see who's in great shape and who's not quite so good."