A sprinters stage was on the programme in the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 today. In the end however the victory was not disputed in a bunch sprint! First of all the early breakaway almost continued till the finish but when it was finally caught, 3 other adventurous riders decided to attack and in the end, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) showed he was the strongest in this leading trio!

Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) seized the occasion to take the yellow and blue leader's jersey, the jersey he took home in the Dauphiné in 2011.

The summary of the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012: Seyssins > Saint-Vallier

Just before noon the stage started in Seyssins under a hesitating sun which only just started to dry up the roads of the rain which never stopped falling since the end of yesterday afternoon.

Rather quickly, 4 riders got away from the peloton and formed a first leading group with Giovanni Bernaudeau (Team Europcar), Markel Irizar (Radioshack-Nissan), Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda) and Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank). Behind them, Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Yukihiro Doi (Argos-Shimano) decided to start the chase and at kilometer 12 this duo managed to join the leading group to thus form a new leading group with 6 riders.

Their gap was already above 2 minutes at that time and it continued to grow, up to 13'10" at kilometer 45.

In the breakawy, Giovanni Bernaudeau took the points for the King of the Mountains classification on top of the Col de Parménie, at the summit of the Côte de la Poulardière and also on the one of the Côte de Chambaran. On top of this climb, the delay of the peloton was still 5'30" while Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), victim of a crash with Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ BigMat), is at more than 6 minutes behind the peloton, probably suffering from a broken rib.

All day long, the average speed remained quite moderated and despite the efforts of the peloton in the last 100 kilometers of the race, this was maybe the reason why the breakaway managed to stay ahead for so long.
On top of the Côte des Escoffiers it was still Giovanni Bernaudeau who arrived on top first, after having battled the points with Nicolas Edet and the rider of Team Europcar thus secured the lead in the King of the Mountains classification after this first stage.

At 20 kilometers from the finish, the gap of the 6 escapees on the peloton is still 1'30" and when the peloton approaches even more, close to the last climb of the day, the Côte de la Sizeranne, Bernaudeau and Doi no longer manage to follow the speed the 4 other leading riders adopted. In this climb, Markel Irizar decides to accellerate and the Spanish rider thus gets in a solo lead. At 7 kilometers from the finish, his solo adventure comes to an end however and the peloton comes back together, getting ready for a sprint finish.

In the descent of this climb, several riders attempt to break away from the peloton and in the end, three riders manage to do so: Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team), Andrey Kaschechkin (Astana) and Jérôme Coppel (Saur-Sojasun).
Threatened by the peloton this leading trio enters the tunnel at a little bit less than one kilometer from the finish and they get out of it with still a few hundred meters lead on the peloton. Cadel Evans does most of the work for this small group to stay ahead and these riders thus get ready to battle for victory in a three rider strong sprint. While getting closer to the finish line it was mainly Evans and Coppel who start the sprint for victory and Cadel Evans finally turned out to be strongest and thus, almost easily, won this stage.

Looking at the final part of the race we could almost think that Cadel Evans decided to fight so much for this leading trio to stay ahead because he knew that Andy Schleck (Radioshack-Nissan) was having difficulties to follow the peloton in the last climb of the stage. At the press conférence after the finish, the Australian rider however declared this was not the case: No, no, that's not the reason. I didn't have much information about what happened behind us. People often criticise race radios but I think today ours didn't work any minute!

The classifications after the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012

The stage classification for the first stage - Seyssins > Saint-Vallier

Behind the leading trio, Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ BigMat) won the sprint of the peloton and thus took the 4th place. Here's the top 10 of this stage:

1/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 4h36'21"
2/ Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun)
3/ Andrey Kashechkin (Astana)
4/ Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) - +0'04"
5/ Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan)
6/ Borut Bozic (Astana)
7/ Gerald Ciolek (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
8/ Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun)
9/ Daniele Ratto (Liquigas-Cannondale)
10/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky)

The general classification after the first stage

Finishing in the peloton at 4 seconds from the leading group, Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) takes the yellow leader's jersey of the general classification, closely followed by today's stage winner, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team).

1/ Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) - 4h34'04"
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +0'01"
3/ Andriy Grivko (Astana) - +0'02"
4/ Carlos Barredo (Rabobank)
5/ Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)

Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEDGE), who won the prologue yesterday, falls back to the 54th place at 22 seconds from Wiggins.

The points classification

With his stage victory, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) also took the lead in the points classification. Here's the top 5 of this classification:

1/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 27 points
2/ Jérôme Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) - 22 points
3/ Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) - 20 points
4/ Andriy Grivko (Astana) - 19 points
5/ Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) - 18 points

King of the Mountains classification

Arriving on top of all difficulties of today's stage (except for the last one), Giovanni Bernaudeau takes the polka dot jersey of the King of the Mountains classification:

1/ Giovanni Bernaudeau (Team Europcar) - 23 points
2/ Nicolas Edet (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - 18 points
3/ Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda) - 12 points
4/ Yukihiro Doi (Argos-Shimano) - 12 points
5/ Markel Irizar (Radioshack-Nissan) - 10 points

Best young rider classification

Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky), who already wore the white jersey as the second best placed rider among the youngsters now takes the lead in this classification, closel followed by Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team):

1/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) - 4h43'10"
2/ Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) - +0'05"
3/ Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan) - +0'06"
4/ Egor Silin (Astana) - +0'07"
5/ Rein Taaramae (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - +0'09"

The photos of the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012

The photos of the Seyssins > Saint-Vallier stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 are now available in the photo section Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 : 1 - Seyssins > Saint-Vallier.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 | Criterium du Dauphiné

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