This WT stage race goes from Sunday to Sunday, and there will be climbs everyday, even on the TTT which will therefore be exceptionally difficult.
Unfortunately, this is yet another race which was 'bought' by the local elected officials, who changed its name to promote their fiefdom, and ⅓ of the Dauphiné will never be visited any more, as it belongs to a different administration.
Riders
No Pogatchar, no Vingegaard; this leaves the door open for the next level of favourites: the UAE duo Almeida🇵🇹/Del Toro🇲🇽 and Ze Elect (🇫🇷 Decathlon). Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) and Jorgenson (🇺🇸 Visma) will be the main outsiders.
Stages
(I apologise if the pictures look shitty, but they were already horribly compressed Jpeg on the official website...)
NB: there are no time bonuses on this race, neither at the end of stages nor within them.
Stage 1 (Sunday 7)
146 km, 3200 m D+
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Stage 2 (Monday 8)
234 km, 3700 m D+
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Stage 3 (Tuesday 9) Team Time Trial
27 km, 400 m D+
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Stage 4 (Wednesday 10)
167 km, 2100 m D+
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Stage 5 (Thursday 11)
196 km, 2200 m D+
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Stage 6 (Friday 12)
183 km, 2900 m D+
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Stage 7 (Saturday 13)
134 km, 3700 m D+
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Stage 8 (Sunday 14)
120 km, 4100 m D+
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Stage 7 (Saturday)
And here we bloody go! 😡
Seixas🇫🇷 crashed and it took him several minutes to restart...
It may be up to Bisiaux🇫🇷 to save the boat. The same whom they didn't put in the breakaway yesterday... in spite of the fact that he was in good position thanks to the breakaway of the first Sunday. They only envisioned a domestique role for him, whereas they could have made him play the co-leader, or have him aim at secondary objectives.
It turned out that Decathlon, as a team, handled the situation pretty well: despite a gap of 4 minutes with the peloton, they never panicked, got 2-3 riders to pull Seixas🇫🇷 on the flat sections, while keeping Bisiaux🇫🇷 in the peloton, where he could pull Seixas in the last climb(s) – and could still have played his own chance, should Seixas give up on the pursuit or withdraw.
Naturally he was unwell and lost time again in the terribly hard end, but neither his team nor himself panicked. They could have ridden too fast for him and cook him for the final part, or he could have relayed and blown his teammates up and then be alone, as we often see it happen in such situations (in the Roglitch years, Visma was famous for that).
Caja Rural managed to place 2 guys in the top-10 of the stage (they came together with Tuckwell (🇦🇺 Bora) who was completely abandoned by is team but managed to keep his Yellow jersey), and they weren't even in a breakaway. That was better than Bisiaux🇫🇷, Jasch🇩🇪, Tullett🇬🇧, Martin🇫🇷, Vauquelin🇫🇷 and so on. Let's see if they can survive again on the last stage, Sunday.