Key Takeaways: Critérium du Dauphiné Stages 1-3

Breaking down how the opening three stages of the Dauphiné were won, and what the next five stages can tell us about what to expect at the upcoming Tour de France

The Critérium du Dauphiné, the eight-stage race through the historic Dauphiné region in the southeast of France, and a traditional dress rehearsal for the Tour de France kicked off this week, and, even with the sport’s top two Tour contenders, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard absent due to opting to head to training camps, the rest of the best have already given us glimpses about what to expect from their form at the Tour de France.

Even with the race following its usual path of featuring mostly muted action through its opening three stages while the major overall contenders for the upcoming Tour de France sit back while the wins are contested by elite stagehunters and wait for key tests in the latter half of the week, we’ve already seen enough to draw a few conclusions, including Primož Roglič looking back to near his best before yet again crashing hard on today’s Stage 3, Remco Evenepoel appearing not fully recovered from his high-speed Basque Country crash and Matteo Jorgenson continuing to display the quiet confidence and elite positioning ability he’s acquired since making the move to Visma-Lease a Bike over the off-season.

Get caught up on all the key action from Stages 1-3 below & get further updates about tomorrow’s critical time trial and the looming mountain stages with a premium BTP subscription:

Current GC Top Ten
1) Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +0
2) Magnus Cort (Uno-X) +3
3) Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) +4
4) Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe) +7
5) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) +9
6) Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) +9
7) Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +11
8) Clément Champoussin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) +13
9) Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +13
10) Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos) +13

Dauphiné Stages 1-3 Notebook:

Stage 1
900m-to-go: Heading into the final kilometer, Mads Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek team is lined out on the front with Alex Kirsh pulling off and Ryan Gibbons taking up the pace to lead out Mads Pedersen.

150m: Gibbons pulls off after executing a near km-long leadout, and launches Pedersen on the short final straight.

Finish: Pedersen easily holds off the riders behind, none of whom even came close to challenging his Lidl-Trek team’s stranglehold on the final few kilometers.

Stage Top Three
1) Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) +0
2) Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +0
3) Hugo Page (Intermarché-Wanty) +0

Stage 2
8.5km: Bora is setting a hard pace on the day’s final climb in an attempt to reel in Bruno Armirail, who is dangling at 27 seconds in front of the peloton. The high pace drops race leader Pedersen.

1.5km: With Bora’s pace stalling and Uno-X, who has come to the front en masse, lurking right behind, the peloton is struggling to pin back Armirail, who has kept the gap at right over twenty seconds.

300m: As Armirail nears the finish line, the peloton, now led by Uno-X, emerges ominously from the fog behind.

Finish: Through the dense fog, we just barely see that Uno-X delivers Magnus Cort to the win, while GC contenders Primož Roglič finish second and Matteo Jorgenson, looking incredibly strong and tuned up for the GC battle, in third.

Stage Top Three
1) Magnus Cort (Uno-X) +0
2) Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe) +0
3) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) +0

Stage 3
900m-to-go: Inside the uphill finish kilometer, IPT’s Krists Neilands attacks.

600m: As the teams of Bora, UAE, and Ineos respond to peg back Krists Neilands, his IPT teammate Derek Gee sits in the draft behind.

500m: Directly following the catch of his teammate, Gee launches a perfectly timed counterattack.

350m: A few riders attempt to respond, but only Romain Grégoire can match his pace, and they pull clear of the peloton behind.

200m: Grégoire gets on the front and starts his sprint (much too early) while Gee sits calmly on his wheel. Behind, Roglič positions for the sprint while Matteo Jorgenson makes sure to stay on his wheel.

Finish: After Grégoire fades on the flat final 100 meters, Gee swings by to grab the biggest win of his career. Behind, EF’s 20-year-old Lukas Nerurkar finishes third, and Roglič, who crashed early in the stage, falls back to 10th place.

Stage Top Three
1) Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +0
2) Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) +0
3) Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) +3

Key Takeaways:

1) Primož Roglič Has Already Highlighted His GC Strengths and Flaws Through Three Days of Racing: At the start of the race, all eyes were on how the 34-year-old would look following his hard crash at the Tour of the Basque Country. After three days of fairly muted racing, he appears to be back to incredible form, especially judging by his second-place finish on Stage 2, but yet another brush with the pavement on Stage 3 had him looking dinged up in the sprint finish and raises question marks about how he will be for the remainder of this race and the Tour de France at the end of the month.

• If Roglič bounces back and wins tomorrow’s critical time trial test, his crash on today’s stage highlights that his historic vulnerability, crashing, is still alive and well and could very likely be a major obstacle at the upcoming Tour de France.

  • Even assuming Roglič doesn’t crash at the Tour, the opening few stages of this race, where Roglič has looked sharp, have made it even more clear that compared to last month’s exhibition from Tadej Pogačar at the Giro, no rider at this race, including Roglič and Remco Evenepoel, are simply nowhere near the level of Pogačar.

    • For example, if Pogačar was present at this race, there is no doubt that he would have won two out of the three stages so far with a fair amount of ease.

2) This Will Be a Critical Week for Remco Evenepoel’s Tour de France GC Hopes: Despite looking good and not losing time over the opening three stages, the young Belgian has been insistent that he isn’t fighting for the General Classification at this Dauphine and is instead building slowly into form in preparation for the Tour de France. While this might sound like a good plan, unfortunately for Evenepoel, being in the top one-week stage racing form in June is almost a prerequisite for potential Tour de France GC contenders.

• For example, for the last nine seasons, the rider who went on to win the Tour de France finished 4th or higher in a June week-long stage race.

  • This means tomorrow's Stage 4 34-kilometer-long individual time trial, which will give us a very clear look at the fitness levels of each GC contender, will be key in telling us what to expect from Evenepoel at the upcoming Tour de France.

3) The Success, or Failure, of Visma-LAB’s Dual GC Leaders Will Be Key to Their Tour de France Campaign: With their two-time defending Tour de France champion away at a high-altitude alpine training camp, last year’s dominant Grand Tour GC team is testing the waters with their two backup Tour de France GC options, Matteo Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss.

• With Jorgenson already winning the overall at Paris-Nice earlier in the season, his mix of time trialing and climbing should make him a serious contender to win this Dauphine, even if the more mountainous terrain will test his somewhat shaky pure-climbing credentials.

  • Due to both the Dauphine and the Tour favoring time trial-focused riders, if Jorgenson does perform well enough to finish on the overall podium, expect Visma to feel comfortable sending him to the Tour as their GC option, with Kuss once again playing the wildcard role.

    • This may seem strange considering Kuss recently won the overall at a Grand Tour (2023 Vuelta), but with steady-state riding, both in terms of climbing and time trialing, playing such a big role at the Tour, Kuss would likely need once again to play off another GC threat on his own team to create the space to ride clear in a breakaway on a mountain stage to build up enough of a cushion to survive the time he will lose in the time trials.

• Even if Vingegaard shows up race fit at the Tour late this month, his disrupted training will likely leave him below the level he has displayed over the last few seasons en route to winning the overall, which means the form of Kuss and Jorgenson will be key since Visma will want as many GC options as possible to act as an insurance policy, and press Pogačar with multi-faceted attacks like they did back at the 2022 editions of the race.

4) Honorable Mentions: Even with the Dauphine functioning as a major Tour de France GC bellwether, the race up to this point has told us a fair amount about who will be contesting Tour de France stages.

• Mads Pedersen: With his dominant win on Stage 1, the Dane racked up his 8th victory of the 2024 season and reminded everyone that he is one of the sport’s most elite stage winners just as the Tour de France approaches.

  • With six Grand Tour stage wins over the last two seasons, he is tied with Jasper Philipsen and trails only Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel in terms of total GT stage wins over that time period.

• Magnus Cort: The veteran Danish rider showed why Uno-X shelled out serious money to sign him from EF in the off-season with his Stage 2 victory and hinted that his small Uno-X team has a serious chance of getting the first Grand Tour stage win on their team’s history at the Tour de France.

• Derek Gee: As the press buzzed with reports of Chris Froome and Mike Woods battling for leadership of the Israel-Premier Tech team at the upcoming Tour de France, Derek Gee, almost on cue, duly reminded everyone that while his IPT team may have a lot of high-profile veteran riders, that the results are being driven by their cadre of young talent.

  • His impressively executed stage win showed that team management would be well-served by sending him and the team's other big young talents to the Tour instead of bowing to sponsor pressure to feature older riders.

Stage 4 Preview

Tomorrow’s difficult 34-kilometer time trial course leaves no place to hide and will expose the current form of the top GC contenders and likely tell us who to watch at the upcoming Tour de France.

• Some things to watch are if Ineos’ Josh Tarling can take the stage win, how Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel look on the time trial bikes after the injuries sustained at their Basque Country crashes, Carlos Rodríguez TT form, and how Visma’s dual leaders Jorgenson and Kuss fare.

How/Where to Watch Stages 4-7
Where: Peacock (USA), Discovery+/Eurosport (Europe)
When: 9:00am ET, June 5th-7th, 7:00am ET June 8th-9th