2019 Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 6 Results & Recap
Stage 6 of the 2019 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
\nJulian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) took his 10th win of the 2019 season in Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne in a tight two-up sprint against breakaway companion Gregor Mühlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe) after 229 kilometres of racing. The duo broke away from Alessandro De Marchi (CCC) on the final climb, who held on for third on the day.
“It’s been a really difficult day,” said Alaphilippe, who also takes over the king of the mountains competition. “I wanted to do something good this week, especially today. My two rivals have tried to play with me a bit in the last hill. I told the [Gregor] Mühlberger I’d stay behind him if he didn’t want to cooperate. I knew he’d be explosive in the sprint. Fatigue is picking up after the bad weather we’ve had some days at the Dauphiné. Even though we had a big advantage, we rode hard all day. It’s been a nervous finale. I launched my sprint the latest possible. Passed the finishing line, I look at the big screen and I saw throughout the photo-finish that I had won. It makes me happy. I love to win. I race for winning. I’ve won a lot since the beginning of the season but I try to win at least one stage in every stage I take part in. In addition, the Dauphiné is my first race in France this year. I wanted to have a positive week to figure out where I’m at before the Tour de France. It’s super so far. I’ve had a good time trial.”
The GC favorites finished their ride a few minutes down with no change in overall, except for Wout van Aert dropping out of the top five. Adam Yates retained the overall lead.
“It wasn’t a full gas stage,” Yates said. “That’s what you expect when it’s not a mountain top finish. The three guys away were quite far on GC, everyone else was happy with what we were doing. In the last climb, we expected the race to be a little harder. It’s a short stage tomorrow and the day after, so I’m sure a lot of guys want to break away. There’ll be a long climb of 20km to finish with. I almost haven’t done anything like that this year yet but I feel good. It’s hard to say what will happen. We’re all still very close on GC.”
Alaphilippe, Mühlberger and De Marchi were the first, and only, riders to attack and gain an advantage, that rose to just shy of 15 minutes during the long, wet stage. Over the eight KOMs on tap, the eventual winner took maximum points over each of them to take the KOM jersey away from Casper Pedersen (Team Sunweb).
The gap started to decrease with about 40 kilometres left, but there was no urgency to steal the win again from the breakaway group. On the final climb, Alaphilippe launched several attacks to shake off Mühlberger and De Marchi, but Mühlberger was unflappable, led out the sprint and challenged Alaphilippe in the closing meters. The Frenchman ended up taking his second win of the Dauphine by a few inches.
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