Is the Criterium Du Dauphine a spoiler for July...?

The Criterium Du Dauphine took place last week in the southern parts of France. Known as the warm up race for the TDF, a lot of the major contenders for the TDF including the "Big 3", known as Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingeggard, and Remco Evenpoel. Jonas and Remco have been dealing with injuries while Tadej has been racing all season long. In stage 1, seeing Jonas attack on the flat gave us hope of what was to come in July by putting Tadej on the absolute limit but the inevitable happened with Tadej Pogacar out sprinting him at the line to take the first yellow jersey. Trek continued to show that their lead out train is still one of the best in the business whether it is Mads Pederson or Jonathan Milan , who in which they are taking to the Tour de France as their main sprinter. the one glimmer of hope for July for the general classification was that Tadej did a subpar TT according to his standards on a course that should have suited him. He was down 16 seconds on Jonas and 38 seconds to Remco in the general classification after the TT but it didn't seem to matter to due to Tadej being so dominant in the mountains.

On stage 5, Visma tried to isolate him early so that they could isolate him i possible and couldn't do it. This allowed Tadej's team to do a full lead out to send Tadej into outerspace as he distances his rivals off of his wheel. This was also the same climb where in 2023, Jonas ended up beating Tadej by 1 minute and 38 seconds on not a long climb. This worries about the competition as far as competition in the TDF. Remco was also miles behind showing that his climbing abilities are just not there compared to his other 2 rivals.

The last 2 stages, His rivals bowed to Tadej Pogacar as he attacked from 12k to go on a mountain top finish on stage 7 and it didn't even look like he was going full gas even though he only beat Jonas by 14 seconds.

Tadej Pogacar winning stage 7 of the Criterium Du Dauphine Credit europe1.fr

Tadej ended up winning the last ever Dauphine by 59 seconds over Jonas but didn't feel that close. The race is being rebranded as Tour Auvergne- Rhone-Alps starting next year. According to Cycling news, they said, "it will future help promote the race due to allowing the ASO to make it a more interesting race."

The surprise of the Dauphine was Florian Lipowitz of Red-Bull Bora Hansgrohe, a 24 year old from Germany, as he took 3rd place in the general classification which was over 1 minute 40 seconds better than Remco. He is planning on being a co-leader for the TDF for that team alongside Primoz Roglic, who has a history of crashing in the TDF. I think it is definitely a safe move for them due to the fact that they aren't the biggest favorite team out there so they will be able to sit in the wheels a lot more than say UAE or Visma Lease a Bike. the question is can he do it for all 3 weeks. He did win the best young rider competition in the Vuelta with being 5th overall in last year's Vuelta. But it could be overlooked due to the heavy gap that he was "gifted".

UAE in a strong position to go back to back with Tadej, and a lot of teams are left brining up their chalkboards to come up with new plans just 3 weeks away from the TDF that starts on July 5th in Lier.

Will we see the same replication at the TDF ?

• Yes
• No
• Other