First kiss for Koen Bouwman

June 6 ^th 2017 - 16:28

Six at the front after two kilometres

170 riders started stage 3 of the 69th Critérium du Dauphiné. Two non-starters: Eros Capecchi (Quick-Step Floors) and Floris De Tier (LottoNL-Jumbo). Six riders took the lead at km 2: Koen Bouwman and Alexey Vermeulen (LottoNL-Jumbo), Bryan Nauleau (Direct Energie), Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Quentin Pacher and Edvaldas Siskevicius (Delko Marseille Provence KTM). They reached a maximum advantage of 6.50 at the col de Fontayes (km 55.5) as they were experiencing 47 kilometres of the route also scheduled for stage 16 of the coming Tour de France from Le Puy-en-Velay to Romans-sur-Isère.

FDJ in the chase, but...

As FDJ and Cofidis combined forces when they took over from Lotto-Soudal at the helm of the peloton, the gap was down to four and half minutes at half way into the race. Other teams like Katusha-Alpecin with Tiago Machado and Dimension Data with Jay Thompson showed the same interest. The time difference was still around two minutes with 20km to go. That's when some of the sprinters' teams realized it would be hard to catch the breakaway riders who remained on a cooperative mode. No attack was reported in the front group before the sprint eventually won by Bouwman who had also passed first at all four categorized climbs of the day so he moved closer to race leader Thomas De Gendt in the King of the Mountains competition. Arnaud Démare won the bunch sprint again but for seventh place this time.