Davide Formolo triumphs at Criterium Du Dauphiné

A long, solitary winning ride gave Davide Formolo his fourth career success with the Italian champion crossing the finish line of stage three of the Criterium del Dauphiné, from Corenc-Saint Martin de Belleville of 157 km, in first position, after cycling for 65 km alone at the head of the race, climbing the Col de la Madeleine and the final Cat 1 ascent.

 
Already after 30 km of racing, Formolo had jumped from the peloton in the company of 8 other riders. With the average pace very high (50.3 km / h after the first hour of racing), the gap to the breakaway hovered at around 5 minutes.

 
On the slopes of the Col de la Madeleine, Formolo left his breakaway companions, building a maximum lead of 5’50”. The UAE Team Emirates rider managed to hold off the chasers to the line to claim victory with 33″ on Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ).

 
Good performance also by Tadej Pogačar, who finished 8th with the same time as Roglic: the Slovenian from UAE Team Emirates climbed to 11th place in the general classification (+1’17” from the leader Roglic).

A pleased Davide Formolo also becomes leader in the climbers classification : “This victory comes after weeks of training at high altitude with the team and after having raced the Strade Bianche and the Milan-Sanremo: today’s success repays the mistake made in Milan Sanremo, when I was a little too far behind on the Poggio to be able to follow Van Aert’s attack.
Today we went on the break very early, but then, when I saw that the advantage at the foot of the Col de la Madeleine would not allow us to go to the finish, I decided to fight back to try to widen the gap to the group, to give myself as much time as possible.
I spent a lot of energy in the valley leading to the final climb, also because the heat was tough, so I took the ascent towards the finish line without the certainty of reaching the finish on my own, but finally I managed to achieve this success”.

 
Stage 3 results:
1. Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) 4:06:56
2. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) @ 33″
3. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) s.t.

 
General classification after the 3rd stage:
1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) 13:14:35
2. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) @ 14″
3. Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe) @ 20″
11. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) @ 1’17”