Tadej Pogacar wins Criterium du Dauphiné as Lenny Martínez takes final stage win from the breakaway

Bahrain - Victorious have net a big stage win to finish off the Criterium du Dauphiné. Lenny Martínez has won stage 8 from the breakaway, finishing off the race with a bang as in the battle for the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar withstood the attack of Jonas Vingegaard to conquer the overall classification.

The breakaway of the day was established featuring only top riders in the peloton due to the very difficult nature of the start. Sepp Kuss, Mathieu van der Poel, Alexey Lutsenko, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Ben Healy, Enric Mas, Maxim van Gils, Tobias Foss, Lenny Martínez, Iván Romeo and Jake Stewart.

The group was very strong so it held a nice gap despite the chase from the peloton. Mathieu van der Poel briefly went off the front and put himself in the head of the race where he stayed quite a few kilometers. However, much due to the work of Iván Romeo in the lead for Enric Mas.

The breakaway entered the final climb to Mont Cenis with around 1:30 minutes of lead over the Uno-X Mobility-led peloton (for Tobias Johannessen). The Norwegian quickly attacked in the GC group and attempted to make the difference, whilst being followed by the GC rivals. Tim Wellens then led the group until Johannessen attacked again and then Remco Evenepoel's move with 8 kilometers to go blew up the group.

In front Enric Mas attacked, followed by Lenny Martínez, and the Frenchman went solo off the front with around 8 kilometers to go. The Frenchman crossed the summit of the climb with 50 seconds over Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard - after the Dane made a move on the final climb.

The Frenchman went in to take the stage win, a big one to finish the race, followed by Vingegaard and Pogacar whilst the gaps behind weren't overly high.