"We continue to accumulate important points" - Harold Tejada's wild breakaway puts him deep into Dauphiné GC fight

XDS Astana Team are on a mission this year and that is to score enough UCI points to retain their World Tour license. Against all odds, they have already provisionally climbed onto that position into June, but continue to push forward to assure that happens at the end of the year. Harold Tejada is doing his share at the Criterium du Dauphiné after working with the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Florna Lipowitz.

"It was a good day for us. Today we wanted to attack early and take the breakaway. That was our plan, but normally one of our teammates would have gone," Tejada said in a post shared by the Kazakh team.

The surprising race scenario saw the Colombian himself, the team's GC leader for the week, infiltrate an incredibly strong breakaway. It was not by chance that the riders rode at above 45Km/h for 207 kilometers that featured over 3000 meters of climbing. This happened because the group was extremely strong and Tejada had the legs to be there.

The Colombian also did his share of the work on the final climb and kilometers to try and fight for the stage win but also ultimately gain time on his direct GC rivals. Whilst fighting for the overall win is very unlikely, the Top10 is very realistic taking into consideration he's achieved this at the UAE Tour and Paris-Nice earlier this year. The Colombian's performance earned him a second place on the day and 1 minute exactly over the riders who arrived in the peloton.

"We found ourselves in a difficult situation when we attacked, so I ended up breaking away and we made it to the finish line," he explains. "We are happy with the result we got today. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the time trial, we will study it again and try to set a good time. We continue to accumulate important points, and the most important thing is that we enjoy the process."