De La Cruz impresses on hard day at the Dauphiné

It was a case of a passing of the baton between Davide Formolo and David De La Cruz with the later inheriting the Mountains leaders jersey after a long day out front of stage 4 of the Criterium Du Dauphiné.

Yesterday the Italian champion Formolo left his mark with the stage win and the mountains jersey. Today it was the turn of the Spaniard from UAE Team Emirates to animate a long breakaway, which ended with a 2nd place, and a jump to the top of the Mountains ranking.

 
De La Cruz went in the break, a few moments after the flag dropped from Ugine, together with 12 other escapees, a brave move considering that the 153.5 km towards the uphill finish of Megève (2nd category) had 5 mountain passes.
After reaching a maximum advantage of 5 ‘, the group reduced to 8 on the final ascent. Finally Lennard Kamna (Bora -hansgrohe) showed his form to win, followed by David De La Cruz at 41”.

 
De La Cruz: “It was a very hard day, it was the most demanding stage of the Dauphiné. Until now I hadn’t had great sensations. I think I paid a little for having just come down from training at altitude, but today I had very good legs, which allowed me to get in the break. Being up front would also have allowed me to eventually help Pogačar, but in the end I found myself fighting for the win and for the ranking of best climber. It would have been nice to win, but Kamna was stronger and second place is a good result”.

 
Pogačar arrived at the finish line together with the other big names of the race at 3’01 “from the winner. The Slovenian climbed back to 9th place in the general classification (+ 1’17” from Primoz Roglic), also due to the abandonment of Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe).

 
Criterium Du Dauphiné Results Stage 4:
1. Lennard Kamna (Bora-hansgrohe) 4:27:56
2. David De La Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) @ 41″
3. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) @ 56″

 
General classification after the 4th stage:
1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) 17:45:32
2. Thibau Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) @ 14″
3. Guillame Martin (Cofidis) @ 24″
9. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) @ 1’17 “

 
Meanwhile at Il Lombardia (WT) the in-form Diego Ulissi put in a brave ride to finish 8th place at the event affectionately known as “the race of the falling leaves”.

Danish rider Jakob Fuglsang proved the strongest on the day, coming home to win solo after 231km, in a race which was marked by crashes, especially to Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck Quickstep) and Max Schachmann (Bora-hansgrohe).

UAE Team Emirates were well represented from the early stages with Aleksandr Riabushenko making it into the main break of the day before being reeled back in the closing stages.

 
Il Lombardia Results:

1. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) 5:32:54
2. George Bennett (Jumbo Visma) @31”
3. Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) @51”
8. Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) @5’20”

Photo Credits: @ASO/Alex Broadway