Primoz Roglic wins stage two of Criterium du Dauphine to hit form ahead of Tour de France

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) laid down another huge marker ahead of the Tour de France with victory on the second stage of the Criterium du Dauphine on Thursday.

After Jumbo-Visma dominated at the Tour de l’Ain last weekend, where Roglic won two of the three stages to claim the overall victory, all eyes this week have been on a beefed-up Ineos team, seeing whether they can respond to the gauntlet which has been thrown down by their Dutch rivals.

So far, they have found it difficult. Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert took victory on Wednesday’s opening stage, his team controlling the last 20km impressively. On Thursday, Ineos switched to a different tactic, putting all seven riders on the front heading into the final climb, the hors categorie Col de Porte. It looked like the days of old, with Dylan van Baarle leading from Jonathan Castroviejo, then Michal Kwiatkowski, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Pavel Sivakov, all riding in support of Egan Bernal.

But cracks began to appear as the gradients ramped up. Froome, who is still working his way back from a career-threatening injury at last year’s Dauphine, could not hack the pace being set by Kwiatkowski and had to pull over with around 4.5km remaining. The 35-year-old gave the cameras a thumbs up. But after sitting up on Wednesday, again with around 4km remaining, there are bound to be questions about whether this is all a pre-arranged strategy and whether he can find form in time for the Tour.

Thomas then struggled to maintain the pace after Kwiatkowksi had finished his turn, leaving Sivakov to pull.

Ineos were open to an attack and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was the first to try. The main race favourites managed to go with the German, apart from Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale).

Heading into the final kilometre, Bernal tried to wriggle clear but his attack was swiftly closed down by Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma).

Roglic then launched a powerful seated attack with 700m to go. Bernal tried to respond but had to swing over. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) eventually finished second at eight seconds with Bernal in a group a further two seconds back.

Roglic now leads the race by 12 seconds from Pinot, with Buchman third at 14 seconds and Bernal fourth at 16 seconds.

With this much-delayed season still only a couple of weeks old, and with four weeks still to go until the first real mountain test at the Tour, there is still time for riders to find their form. But Jumbo-Visma’s dominance — and Roglic’s form — has certainly raised plenty of questions.

It has also raised hopes of an open Tour with so many names, including Pinot, Bernal, Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic), Miguel Ángel López (Astana), Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) and Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) all up there at the finish on Thursday. Others, such as Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Enric Mas (Movistar), Rigoberto Urán (EF Pro Cycling), Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) and Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) were, like Froome and Thomas, in touch until the final kilometres.

The race continues with a 157km stage fron Corenc to Saint-Martin-De-Belleville on Friday. It is due to finish on Sunday. The Tour begins in Nice on August 29.