2018 Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 2 Results & Recap
Stage 2 of the 2018 Critérium du Dauphiné is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Ackermann wins stage 2\nBy Clara Beard
Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage two of the Criterium du Dauphine after a reduced field sprint made its way to Belleville after 180 kilometres of racing. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) took second and yesterday’s stage winner Daryl Impey finished third.
“It was a difficult last climb with 30km to go,” Ackermann said. “It was certainly not an easy stage for the sprinters. There was a lot of climbing. There aren’t many sprinters at this race so it was one of my goals of the year to win a stage at the Dauphiné. Yesterday I made the mistake to start sprinting from the front but I didn’t repeat the same mistake again today. Everything went perfect. It’s amazing that I won. My race is finished now. I’ll work for the team in the remaining stages. Our leader for the overall is [last year’s best young rider] Emanuel Buchmann. We at Bora-Hansgrohe are always up for a good surprise.”
Impey had enough in bonus seconds to overtake Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) and step into the yellow blue jersey.
“It was quite a tricky final,” Impey said. “We obviously tried to bring that guy [Nikita Stalnov] back in the end. It kind of left surf a little bit by myself at the very end. But I was in a good wheel with [former team-mate Jens] Keukeleire. Other guys jumped ahead of us. I would have liked to win the stage but the bonus gives me the yellow-blue jersey and it’s a massive bonus for today. Today obviously the sprinters’ teams were controlling. At the end, it looked like no one wanted to take the chase on. I knew I had some good chances to get the jersey if we’d come down to a bunch sprint.
“It’s going to be nice to start last,” Impey went on to say about the team time trial. “We’ll know everyone’s time on the road. To ride a TTT in yellow is going to be amazing. It brings me memories back from the Tour de France in 2013. Hopefully it’s just the start of good things to come. We have a great team. We have to be the fastest tomorrow to keep the jersey.”
Nikita Stalnov (Astana), Antoine Duchesne (Groupama-FDJ), Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Samsic) and Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) rode away from the gun at Montebrison. The break gained a maximum of six minutes and 40 seconds before Bora-Hansgrohe and Vital Concept took up chase, keen to get their sprinters in with a chance at victory.
With the breakaway’s advantage consistently dropping by the time the quartet reached the first in a series of climbs, members of the group started to get dropped. After the last of five climbs, only Stalnov continues to trudge ahead solo with a handful of seconds ahead of the looming peloton. The Astana rider was brought back about 900 meters to go the line while Michal Kwiatkowski crashed within two kilometres to go.
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