Arnaud Démare with a big margin!

June 5 ^th 2017 - 16:49

Four riders away from the gun

174 riders started stage 2 of the 69th Critérium du Dauphiné in Saint-Chamond. One non-starter: Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal). Koen Bouwman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mickaël Delage (FDJ), Nathan Brown (Cannondale-Drapac) and Romain Combaud (Delko Marseille Provence KTM) rode away from the gun as the initial part of the race was the 4.6km long climb of côte de Croix Blanche. The time gap to the peloton led by Lotto-Soudal, the team of race leader Thomas De Gendt, was stabilized around 3.20 and Delage gave up after 25km of racing as he believed he'd be more useful at the service of Arnaud Démare in case of a bunch sprint finish.

Lutsenko in a brilliant solo effort

A maximum time gap of 3.50 was recorded at km 70 ahead of the ascent to col deVerrières-en-Forez where Astana seriously upped the pace of the peloton. The Kazakh team was preparing an action by Alexey Lutsenko who rode away solo and rejoined Bouwman, Brown and Combaud in the lead of the race at km 92. The 2012 u23 world champion went on his own as he passed the finishing line in Arlanc for the first time 31.5km before the end. Successively, Bahrain-Merida and Dimension Data showed their ambitions as they sped up at the front of the peloton. Lutsenko was reeled in with 3km to go.

Démare, like at Paris-Nice

Katusha-Alpecin set a perfect sprint for Alexander Kristoff but Démare who had been in trouble in the hills with 70km to go timed it better to pass the Norwegian fast man way before the finishing line. The Frenchman claimed his sixth victory of the 2017 season. The most significant one this year for the winner of the 2016 Milan-Sanremo was stage 1 in Paris-Nice. His compatriot Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis rounded up the podium whereas no change occurred in the overall ranking with Thomas De Gendt keeping the yellow-blue jersey for the second straight day.