Le Sappey-en-Chartreuse (France) (AFP)

Sixteen days before the start of the Tour de France, the favorite of the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, immediately seized orders, Thursday, at the Col de Porte, from the first arrival at the top.

Roglic, dominant in the recent Tour de l'Ain, took his distance in the last few hundred meters of this short second stage (135 km) cooled by the storm in the last minutes. Even if his advantage was limited to a handful of seconds, eight precisely on a trio of pursuers made up of two French people, Thibaut Pinot and Guillaume Martin, and the German Emanuel Buchmann.

Main defeated of the day in the Chartreuse massif, Egan Bernal took 10th place at ten seconds. His Ineos team kept the train going for most of the climb, but the Colombian, winner of the last Tour de France, found himself lonely 2.5 kilometers from the finish.

Bernal's acceleration to 1,600 meters, not very sharp, was muzzled by ... a teammate of Roglic (Sepp Kuss). The Colombian Nairo Quintana was not more successful in the last kilometer before Roglic decided to take the lead and a definite advantage despite the meritorious effort in counterattack by Guillaume Martin, himself joined near the finish by Pinot and Buchmann.

The Bernal team has applied their plan, to ride like a steamroller in the last 11 kilometers of this irregular pass (17.5 km at 6.2%) and wearing out. At the pace imposed by the garnet jerseys (van Baarle, Castroviejo, Kwiatkowski above all, Thomas, Sivakov), the attacking intentions of their opponents have remained a dead letter.

- Froome passive actor -

But, if it suffocated the other headliners of the Jumbo team (Tom Dumoulin and, even more, Steven Kruijswijk), the Ineos train did not threaten Roglic. The former ski jumper, who is participating for the first time in the Dauphiné, confirmed his current superiority in the straight line of the Tour de l'Ain (two stage successes, a second place and the final victory).

"Among my rivals, it is Egan (Bernal) that I watch the most, since he is the last winner of the Tour de France", commented Roglic. "But on the starting line, there are a lot of us who are fit and motivated. We'll have to beat them all if we want to win!"

For the Jumbo team, insolent by force, everything seems to be going well with its eight victories since the beginning of the month. While waiting for the continuation at the Dauphiné, especially if the race does not settle down until the very last kilometers of the arrivals at the top.

For their opponents, the solution lies in anticipation. Julian Alaphilippe, dropped 6 kilometers from the finish, was positioned far in the standings, nearly five minutes away, in order to have additional latitude to aim for a stage victory. For others retarded, the situation is more worrying: Chris Froome (49th on the stage), once again in the shadows, gave in 4,400 meters from the line without having been able to play his role in the train of the Ineos team.

On Friday, the third stage leaves from Corenc, very close to Grenoble, to reach Saint-Martin-de-Belleville (Savoie). La Madeleine, one of the great alpine passes classified out of category (17.3 km at 8.3%), precedes the final ascent (14.8 km at 6%) on the road leading to Val Thorens.

© 2020 AFP