2020 Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 5 Results & Recap
Stage 5 of the 2020 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
Kuss wins final stage, Martinez claims Dauphine victory
The peloton rode 5th and final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné with such aggression experts likened the whole five days to classics style racing. Sepp Kuss enjoyed victory after attacking out of the breakaway on the final climb, with eight kilometres to go. The American climber crossed the line 27 seconds ahead of Colombian Daniel Martinez, who took the overall win.
David de la Cruz worked hard all week to secure the king of the mountains jersey, and by the middle of the stage, he'd locked in the polka dot jersey with 68 points.
"I thought yesterday was the hardest stage of this Dauphiné, but I was wrong," David de la Cruz said. "Today, we went full gas from the start, a GC group got together with the HC climb, and then it was a team time trial. We're happy that I can keep the polka-dot jersey and that Tadej [Pogacar] improved a lot on GC. It's a good sign for the Tour de France. It's special to win this jersey in one of the hardest Dauphinés ever. The main goal in the Tour will be the GC with Tadej and also Fabio Aru. We'll see what I can do myself."
The overall leader Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) didn't' take the start of the 5th and last stage of the 2020 Critérium du Dauphiné. His team reported he opted instead to focus on healing from the injuries he sustained on stage 4.
"With Primoz [Roglic] 's crash, it felt like everything we did was for nothing," said points winner, Wout van Aert. "But on the bus, I felt we didn't want to give up, and we were ready to give everything in this stage. It was super hard from the start. I was happy to take points in the sprint and help Tom [Dumoulin] and Sepp [Kuss] for the finale. Sepp is an incredible guy, always helping, and it's greats to see him win. It was good for me to win the only stage, not finishing in altitude. But Pinot was only 1 point away before today's stage. I was lucky he had to focus on GC. Everything is great. The team is doing really well. And what makes me happy is that after a day like yesterday, we can answer on the pedals. I've shown I can do a lot of things, I can win on the flat, but I can also survive hard stages. The whole team is strong, and we just hope that Stevie [Kruijswijk] and Primoz have a good recovery."
With so many KOMs on tap today, the race situation took a while before it settled in, which it did during the HC Col de Romme and Category 1 Col de la Colombière. There were 24 riders off the front: Thibaut Pinot and Sebastian Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Miguel Angel Lopez and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Hugh Carthy and Daniel Martinez (EF Pro Cycling), Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jonathan Castroviejo and Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step), Tom Dumoulin, Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Tadej Pogacar and David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates), Alejandro Valverde and Enric Mas (Movistar), Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Marc Hirschi (Sunweb), Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic), Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and Kris Neilands (Israel Start-Up Nation).
At the summit of La Colombière, Alaphilippe and Sivakov break away from their chasers and maintain a small gap. They stay away until the Côte de Domancy, 25 kilometres from the finish when Tadej Pogacar, Miguel Angel Lopez, Sepp Kuss and Daniel Martinez power their way up to the duo. Alaphilippe cracks, and leaves five leaders at the front of the race, 1 minute and 30 seconds ahead of a chasing Pinot group. Now in the race lead, Pinot's main rival was Martinez, who started the day just 12 seconds down on GC.
However, Pinot couldn't make up that time, and Martinez successfully held off the Frenchman's bid to win the Dauphine while Kuss finished the stage in first.
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