Undulating, technical course suits the characteristics of former cyclocross World champion
Lars Boom (Rabobank) took the opening prologue of this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné around the streets of St-Jean-de-Maurienne. The former World cyclocross champion blitzed the deceptively undulating 5.4km course in a time of 6’18” to take the first leaders jersey of the race, three seconds ahead of Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and six ahead of British champion Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky).
Overnight rain left the course a little wet for the early starters, with the early running made by Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) with a time of 6’35”. The next man behind him was newly re-crowned US time trial champion Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervélo), but “Captain America” couldn’t quite match the Briton’s time over the short course.
Paris-Roubaix third place Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) followed just a few minutes later though, and lowered the best time to 6’33”.
Tjallingii was to stay in the hot seat for a little over 20 minutes, until his German teammate Paul Martens went two seconds quicker. Martens was only to be at the top for a few minutes though, as Cyril Lemoine (Saur-Sojasun) went faster still with 6’29”.
With most of the race favourites starting after him, Lemoine’s time stood for a surprisingly long time. Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) went four seconds slower, and soon afterwards it began to rain once more.
The shower was not to last for long though, and with the roads drying out, Robert Gesink (Rabobank) finished in 6’34”. Soon afterwards though Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) knocked Lemoine off the top, having started more than a hundred riders behind his compatriot.
Having taken so long for Lemoine’s time to be beaten, it looked as though Kadri may even hold on to take his first victory of the season. Joost Posthuma (Leopard Trek) came within a few tenths of a second of the Frenchman, but nobody else looked like beating it.
Finally, as the big favourites began to start, Wiggins pushed Kadri off the top of the leaderboard with, what looked like might be the winning time, of 6’24”. Unfortunately for the British champion though, former cyclocross champion Boom was finding the technical course, which required braking and sprinting out of a number of corners, to his liking. The Dutchman blasted Wiggins off the top spot with a time of 6’18”, fully six seconds faster.
Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), one of the big favourites for the overall race, finished in a time just short of that of Kadri and Posthuma, then German sprinter John Degenkolb (HTC-Highroad) came within a few tenths of Wiggins.
Alexandre Vinokorov (Astana) was the second to last man off, and he blitzed around the course to finish in second place, just two seconds behind Boom. Last year’s winner Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack) was the final rider to start and his time of 6’33” was good enough for 17th place, and confirmed Boom as the race winner.