"It was a proper Tour de France stage today" was how Tadej Pogačar described a hard-fought 207km hilly trek on Tuesday at the Critérium du Dauphiné, where a tense truce evolved between the main GC teams as they pushed hard to keep a dangerous 13-rider breakaway in check.
Pogačar could be seen staying close to the front end of the chasing bunch on the fast and furious stage to Charantonnay, run at a blisteringly rapid average speed of 45.2kph, and that despite the 3,036 metres of vertical climbing and warm weather. But early on, the Slovenian had his eye on the ball, too, picking up a couple of bonus seconds in the one intermediate sprint of the day after 29km.
