Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) produced a monster time trial effort on stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné and moved into the race lead as he beat young ITT star Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) and claimed victory in a time of 41:49.
There was some doubt over how time trial World Champion Evenepoel would perform on his return to competition after breaking his collarbone and scapula at Itzulia Basque Country in April.
But the 24-year-old quickly showed that any reported pre-race shoulder stiffness wasn’t hindering him much anymore as he settled into his ‘aero bullet’ position for the 40-minute effort and went quicker than European Champion Tarling by 17 seconds over the 34.4km course into Neulise.
Tarling had set the early benchmark as the fourth starter on the day and wasn’t even close to being matched until Evenepoel crossed the line some two hours later after a long stint in the hot seat. The Brit was second on the day with Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) finishing the race against the clock 39 seconds down in third.
After stating before the Dauphiné that he wouldn’t be going for the overall GC, Evenepoel now finds himself in the yellow jersey halfway through the race after Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) finished 1:24 down despite a valiant fight in the yellow jersey.
The Belgian holds a 33-second lead over Roglič in second overall with Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) sat third a further 31 seconds down but with the toughest mountain stages still to come at the end of the week on stages 6, 7 and 8.
“I’m very proud and happy and also the team around me - my family, the staff members, they can really be proud of all their work, all the support they gave me,” said Evenepoel in his winner’s interview.
This is his first win since the final stage of Paris-Nice back in early March and shows he is well on track to be back at top form for his debut at the Tour de France.
“I’s been quite a long way. Three weeks almost no bike and then only four weeks of training and being on this level already is a good sign towards the Tour and my preparation,” Evenepoel said.
“I can only be happy and proud of what I did and now we focus day by day and we will see how it goes in this beautiful race.”
How it unfolded
Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Deceuninck) got stage 4 proceedings underway in a sunny Saint-Germain-Laval but the young Australian wouldn’t lead on the road for too long with one of the favourites for the day, Tarling, rolling off the start ramp just three minutes behind him for the time trial.
The European Champion in the discipline would set the early benchmark for the day over the 34.4km route, scorching to the finish in Neulise with a time of 42:06 at an average speed of 49kph.
Tarling made his way to the line lightyears ahead of everyone else who started in the earlier phase of racing. Kamli Gradek (Bahrain Victorious) was the closest for a long time with a time of 44:36 but this was still a ways away from the Brit’s lead.
Former Giro d’Italia ITT stage winner Matteo Sobrero (Bora-Hansgrohe) showed just what a phenom 20-year-old Tarling is in the discipline as he moved up into second with a strong time but even he couldn’t finish within a minute and a half of the Brit’s time.
Coinciding with the Italian’s finish came many of the field of GC favourites who all sat 13 seconds down on Gee’s lead at the start of the stage.
There were many unknowns for Evenepoel, most notably how his shoulder would hold up after returning to competition from injury. However, it was good news for the Belgian as the ‘aero bullet’ was back and cutting the air in the opening 10 kilometres, overtaking Tarling at the first intermediate time check by just two seconds.
It was in theory the opening, flatter part of the profile that best suited Tarling, but Evenepoel had lost some time to the younger man at the second time check just ahead of the 25km mark. It wasn’t much at all, however, with the clock going red by less than a second for the Belgian. Evenepoel would have 10km to make up just eight tenths of a second.
As the GC field and race leader Gee were continuing to set off, Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) moved into provisional second at the time, 1:07 down on Tarling, showing how well he was going in his first stage race since March after knee injury issues.
Evenepoel moved into the final third of the stage and it became more evident by the kilometre that he was going to out-do Tarling as he scorched his way up the uphill grind to the line, always staying in his most aerodynamic position to best the Brit by 17 seconds at the line.
The other pre-race GC favourites were all making decent efforts behind but none were close to Evenepoel’s flying time. Even reigning Olympic Champion Roglič was more than half a minute behind at the second time check and finish line.
Gee fought hard and honoured the yellow jersey as any race leader would, maintaining a top-five position overall but he was no match for Evenepoel, losing 1:24 at the finish.
Results
Results powered by FirstCycling
