Wout Van Aert wins opening uphill stage at the Dauphine

Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) continued his winning streak with victory on the opening stage of the Criterium du Dauphine with a powerful uphill sprint in Saint-Christo-en-Jarez. The Criterium du Dauphine is the final big test before the Tour de France

The Belgian, who won Milan-San Remo and Strade Bianche this past few weekends, had a strong lead-out from his Jumbo-Visma team including Primoz Roglic, that featured a short descent ahead before 300-metre uphill haul to the line.

Van Aert beat a closing Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) and an in-form Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) to secure a 6 second time bonus over his general classification rivals.

The stage saw an orginal 5 man breakaway be etablished; Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal), Niccolò Bonifazio (Total Direct Energie), Michael Schär (CCC Team), Quinten Hermans (Circus-Wanty Gobert), Tom-Jelte Slagter (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept).

Bonifazio suffered back problems, and that forced him out of the break and out of the race while Van Moer and Hermans crashed and abandoned the race.

Michael Schär (CCC Team) and Tom-Jelte Slagter (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) pressed on and held thd peloton at bay until they reached the climb of  Côte de Saint-Héand whereby Schär pressed on.

Schär was caught by  Andersen and Cavagna but the breakaway was reeled in on the final climb with 12 kms to go, meanwhile Chis Froome's chances of making Team Ineos' Tour de France squad diminished as he was dropped.

FDJ and Jumbo Visma set a high pace until Rigoberto Uran attacked, with the main contenders including Roglic, Quintana, Kwaitkowski reeled him back in. 

Pierre LeTour and Tiesj Benoot had a crack, but Jumbo Visma reeled everone back in.

In the final 300 metres Roglic set a high pace and pulled over as Van Aert went on the attack, with only Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) and an in-form Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) managing to follow.

Van Aert goes into the race lead, wearing the yellow jersey.

Van Aert said aftewards "Apparently I have good legs. I came really tired to the hotel yesterday, after a few days off. The team still wanted to do a perfect job for me today because we saw some chances in the stage. When you have riders like Tony Martin and all these strong leaders, they pulled for me in the end, I had so much motivation to do all I could in the sprint. It was just a great victory. It was good for us we saw the finish line already, we had a better view than on the computer. When we passed through (the first time) I told the guys I was feeling good and wanted to give it a go.  When we started to go uphill I had a whole yellow train in front - even in the end Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk are still the leaders and this is a big team victory. We keep the momentum."

Tomorrow's second 135km stage from Vienne finishes atop the  Col de Porte, a 17.5 km climb at an averge of 6.2%.

Tune in as we expect more fireworks!

VIDEO: 2020 Criterium du Dauphine Stage 1 Highlights

2020 Criterium du Dauphine Stage 1 Top 10

1 Wout van Aert (Bel) Team Jumbo-Visma 5:27:42
2 Daryl Impey (RSA) Mitchelton-Scott
3 Egan Bernal (Col) Team Ineos
4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team
5 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates
6 Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana Pro Team
7 Sergio Higuita (Col) EF Pro Cycling
8 Benoit Cosnefroy (Fra) AG2R la Mondiale
9 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma
10 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis

2020 Criterium du Dauphine GC after Stage 1

1 Wout van Aert (Bel) Team Jumbo-Visma 5:27:32
2 Daryl Impey (RSA) Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:04
3 Egan Bernal (Col) Team Ineos 0:00:06
4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:10
5 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates
6 Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana Pro Team
7 Sergio Higuita (Col) EF Pro Cycling
8 Benoit Cosnefroy (Fra) AG2R la Mondiale
9 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma
10 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis
11 Tiesj Benoot (Bel) Team Sunweb