Critérium du Dauphiné (st. 3)

Telefónica-backed squad keeps Soler, Rosón into GC fight before four decisive mountain stages, conceding just over 1' to winners Sky at incredibly fast 35km from Pont-de-Vaux to Louhans.

A resouding performance from Sky, averaging in excess of 57kph over the 35-kilometer course of stage three in the 2018 Critérium du Dauphiné (Pont-de-Vaux to Louhans), put Polish allrounder Michal Kwiatkowski back into the lead of the Alpine race, as the Movistar Team – bringing to France a lineup with Imanol Erviti and six under-26 riders- limited their losses to take a decent 8th spot, 1’31” behind the winners.

Imanol, Arcas, Castrillo, Carretero, Soler, Rosón and Sütterlin stayed together until the very last kilometer, keeping a good pace over the entire course and slightly improving from a 9th provisional time at the first intermediate check (14km). Today’s result puts Marc Soler now 1’51” behind the leader, with Rosón 1’56” back on Kwiatkowski.

The Telefónica-backed suqad will now tackle four demanding mountain routes from Thursday, set to decide the GC outcome. Stage four (181km) will cover flat roads in its first half before taking on two major mountains in the end: the Mont Noir (HC; 17.5km at 6.9%) and a finish up Lans-en-Vercors (Cat-2; 4.8km, 7.5%).

Picture (c): 1/ BettiniPhoto.net; 2/ ASO