Grega Bole (Lampre-Farnese Vini) won the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné between Evian-les-Bains and St Laurent du Pont in a bunch sprint. He outsprinted Peter Velits (HTC-Columbia) and Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) at the end of the 191km stage after the peloton chased down a late attack on the final climb.
After a number of unsuccessful attempts in the early part of the stage, Blel Kadri (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Cyril Gautier (Bbox Bouyges Telecom) escaped at the 14km mark. They were quickly joined by Matthieu Ladagnous (Française des Jeux), Sébastien Minard (Cofidis) and Dominique Rollin (Cervélo TestTeam) and the five riders managed to build a lead over the rolling parcours. The apathetic peloton let them go.
The Astana team of yesterday’s prologue winner Alberto Contador were on the front of the peloton; having declared that it was not going to try to defend his leaders jersey though, they allowed the quintet’s lead to grow to 9’50” at 56km. The Saxo Bank team joined Astana at the front at this point and reduced it to exactly 9 minutes by the time it crossed the intermediate sprint in Cruseilles at 64.5km. At this point the Liquigas, and Sky teams came to the front to join Saxo Bank and continued to slowly close the gap.
After around 100km the Saxo Bank team gave up the chase and allowed Astana to once again take control; they allowed the gap to increase once again. At the 111km point it had gone back up to 9’20”, prompting the Gamin-Transitions team to come forward and considerably increase the pace.
The gap now began to fall much more rapidly but as the peloton grew closer they slowed the chase down so as to not catch the breakaway too soon. With 20km to go the gap was down to 1’50”, and after a few more kilometres the Cofidis team joined the chase while Minard stopped working up front.
A crash in the peloton caused a number of splits but the pace at the front remained high and with 10km to go the lead was just 35 seconds.
On the 3rd category Côte de Miribel les Echelles, which topped out with just 6.5km to go, Gautier struck out alone as the group’s capture looked imminent; he immediately distanced the other four breakaway riders. As the peloton hit the climb and caught the four chasers, Kevin Seeldrayers (Quick Step) and Oscar Pujol (Cervélo TestTeam) pulled clear at the front. The pair quickly caught and passed Gautier before being joined from behind by Jurgen Vandenbroeck (OmegaPharma-Lotto), Gorka Verdugo (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Pierre Rolland (Bbox Bouyges Telecom), Eros Capecchi (Footon-Servetto), Christohe Riblon (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack).
On the descent Brajkovic, who was in second place overall just 5 seconds behind Contador, attacked and was quickly joined by Capecchi and they passed under the 1km to go banner together. The peloton had done too much work to allow a break to take the stage though, and they were pulled in as the sprinters wound themselves up for the dash for the line. Bole was the fastest and took his first win of the season, and the biggest of his career to date.
Contador finished safely in the main peloton, and with no time bonuses on the stage he holds on to his race lead.
Result stage 1
1. Grega Bole (Slo) Lampre-Farnese Vini
2. Peter Velits (Svk) HTC-Columbia
3. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky
4. Steve Chainel (Fra) Bbox Bouyges Telecom
5. Christophe Ribon (Fra) AG2R-La Mondiale
6. Christian Knees (Ger) Team Milram
7. Stefan Denifl (Aut) Cervélo TestTeam
8. Maxime Bouet (Fra) AG2R-La Mondiale
9. Arkaitz Duran (Spa) Footon-Servetto
10. Julien El Fares (Fra) Cofidis
Standings after stage 1
1. Alberto Contador (Spa) Team Astana
2. Tejay Van Garderen (USA) HTC-Columbia @ 2s
3. Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Team RadioShack @ 5s
4. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky
5. Dario Cataldo (Ita) Quick Step @ 12s