Criterium du Dauphine: Demare sprints to stage 2 victory

Kristoff and Bouhanni round out top three

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Arnaud Démare wins stage 2 of the Critérium du Dauphiné

(Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

Arnaud Demare (FDJ) was the fastest man into Arlanc, taking victory on stage 2 of the Criterium du Dauphine. The Frenchman stormed up the right-hand side of the road to take a clear victory over Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin), with Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) rounding out the podium.

Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) finished safely in the pack to keep hold of his race lead for at least another day.

From a long way out, it seemed that the day would end with a bunch sprint. It was still a messy affair with Katusha the only team able to put something that resembled a sprint train together in the finale. The effort wasn’t enough for Kristoff, who launched his sprint early, only to be overtaken by a surging Demare.

Demare, put into position by a teammate with around 500 metres to go, came past four riders and still had plenty of room to spare by the time he crossed the line for his sixth win of the season. Bouhanni tried to follow in the pedal strokes of Demare, but found himself shut out by Kristoff, who closed the door on the right side of the road to prevent anyone else passing him. It worked, and Bouhanni had to settle for third place behind the Norwegian.
Bryan Coquard had been one of the pre-stage favourites, but he was left without any teammates after his Direct Energie team botched the leadout, leaving him to try and freelance it, with little success. The Frenchman crossed the line in 10th place.

How it happened

De Gendt started the day in the yellow jersey with a 48-second lead after his solo effort at the end of the opening stage. His lead did not look under any serious threat with an undulating, although not overtly arduous, stage from Saint-Chamond to Arlanc. A blow to De Gendt, however, would be the non-start of his teammate Tosh Van der Sande, who fell ill the day before.
With points up for grabs early in the mountains competition, a break was quick to form. Koen Bouwman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mickaël Delage (FDJ), Nathan Brown (Cannondale-Drapac) and Romain Combaud (Delko Marseille Provence KTM) broke clear over the third category Côte de Croix Blanche. The peloton was happy to let them break free, but the leash was kept fairly tight, with the maximum advantage hardly north of 3:30 at any given time.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/criterium-du-dauphine-2017/stage-2/results/