"It’s also definitely an option to attack myself" - 'Green' Mathieu van der Poel may not race hilly finale conservatively

Mathieu van der Poel is entering stage 3 of the Criterium du Dauphiné with good form and a third place in the overall classification. Remco Evenepoel hinted at the Dutchman potentially jumping into the race lead today, but van der Poel himself may not only be thinking of following wheels in today's finale.

"I like it, so I will try to keep it until the end of the tour", a cheerful van der Poel said to CyclingPro.net this morning carrying the green jersey as the leader of the points classification.

After sprinting to third on both days thus far, he could potentially jump into the lead if he gets more bonus seconds today and Tadej Pogacar misses out on them - assuming Jonathan Milan will get dropped on the climbs.

But van der Poel believes the breakaway actually stands good chances of succeeding: “It will be difficult, because if a strong leading group gets away, they still have a chance today. The teams of the GC riders don’t care if a group gets away, so we’ll see how it works out.”

However if it does come back to a battle between those in the peloton, the Dutchman may not play the conservative card. “It’s also definitely an option to attack myself. If I have the legs, I always try something," he anticipates.

But that is a big 'if', taking into considerations that uphill he will have the likes of Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel next to him. "But it starts with good legs. Especially with this start, where it goes straight up. The level is also very high here. There are very strong climbers. We’ll see," he concluded. Thus far in this race, the 30-year has also shown no signs of struggle due to the injury he has suffered in the Nové Mesto XCO World Cup two weeks ago, and seems to have recovered fully from it.