Critérium du Dauphiné

Stage 4:  Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Risoul, 210km/130mi

By Cathy Mehl

It was time to head to the high mountains in the 62nd Critérium du Dauphiné on Thursday.  A gradual climb that kicked up near the end was the main feature of the day and proved to be the battleground for today’s stage.  As expected, with less than 3km to go Astana’s Alberto Contador was itching to fly and began dancing on the pedals….but Team RadioShack’s Jani Brajkovic knew the steps to that dance too and countered every move Contador made in a perfect defense of his yellow jersey, taking third in the stage as well.  The Team worked perfectly all day, keeping the pace high until the final climb with 12km to go when Chris Horner controlled from the front until the closing few minutes.  Jersey flapping and yellow shoes hard to miss, Horner rode for Jani until 3km to go when Brajkovic was on his own and clearly showing plenty of racing savvy to protect his race lead.  

The stage win went to Nicolas Vogondy (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) after a he put in a strong attack with 1.5km to go and was able to hold his lead to the end.  Clearly thrilled with his win, the Frenchman celebrated on the line with a “rocking baby” salute and a huge grin from ear-to-ear.   HTC-Columbia’s Tejay Van Garderen retained his second place on the classification at 1:15 behind Jani, with Contador moving up into third at 1:41 down.   David Millar (Garmin) completely missed the moves and dropped to fourth place at almost two minutes back. 

“I’m happy about the team,” explained Team Director Alain Gallopin.  “It was not as easy as it looked. Especially the first hour we had to work hard. We had to prevent a breakaway of about 15 guys and there were a lot of attacks. Finally with the breakaway of two guys, it was better for us but we had to ride 120K in the wind and there was a lot of wind today.

“On the final climb, everything went fine,” continued Gallopin.  “Horner did a lot of work. Ben did his best but still suffers from his crash of earlier this week. And of course we miss Haimar here. He is able to fire a real ‘cartouche’ on such a climb. Tomorrow is another day but up to now we’re happy.”

Two riders went away after 30km of racing.  Danny Pate (Garmin) and Stephan Denifl (Cervelo) held a sizable gap of more than eight minutes to the Team RadioShack-led peloton on a windy and warm day. With 40km to go the duo still held more than six minutes, but once they hit the final climb Pate blew and Denifl was on his own.  Initially the 22-year-old Austrian maintained his advantage and held strong on the climb, keeping almost two minutes to the yellow jersey group, but once the group hit 5km to go the attacks were fast and furious and Denifl was eventually reabsorbed into the chasing group. 

At 3.6km to go Denis Menchov (Rabobank) put in a solid attack and was followed by Oscar Pujol (Cervelo).  But Menchov was 2:47 down and Brajkovic played the waiting game, knowing he didn’t have to track down every effort.  He chose instead to stick to the wheel of Contador and was able to follow every move the Spaniard made in a fine display of mature racing tactics from our 26-year old Slovenian champion.

Friday’s stage 5 is much shorter than today’s but includes two categorized climbs before the HC climb to Chamrousse before a 30km plunge to Grenoble.  Looming large is Saturday’s stage up to Alpe d’Huez.

Beyond the Finish Line:  Risoul is a popular ski resort in the French Alps. The resort was an early adopter of snowboarding. The Surfland snowpark is now complemented by rails for beginners and experienced users. The snowpark was chosen as a training zone for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. The resort believes that the concept of black, red and blue run designations is outdated and is moving to a series of themed areas such as the “Freeride  Zone.”

Top Ten Results

1              Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom                 6:03:25                   

2              Romain Sicard (Fra) Euskaltel - Euskadi   0:00:12  

3              Jani Brajkovic (Slo) Team Radioshack   0:00:15  

4              Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana                                  

5              Reine Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne                0:00:18  

6              Pierre Rolland (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom                       

7              Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto                           

8              Eros Capecchi (Ita) Footon-Servetto                         

9              Rémi Pauriol (Fra) Cofidis, le Credit en Ligne        0:00:23  

10            Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank

Team RadioShack Results

29           Christopher Horner (USA) 0:01:05

77           Ben Hermans (Bel) 0:05:34

128         Geoffroy Lequatre (Fra) 0:12:55

135         Sergio Miguel Moreira Paulinho (Por)   0:13:03 

161         Markel Irizar Aranburu (Spa)   0:17:38    

162         Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)

General Classification after Stage 4

1              Jani Brajkovic (Slo) Team Radioshack  16:25:44                

2              Tejay Van Garderen (USA) Team HTC - Columbia              0:01:15  

3              Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana                 0:01:41  

4              David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions   0:01:56  

5              Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom                 0:02:43  

6              Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank               0:02:55  

7              Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto          0:03:06  

8              Christian Knees (Ger) Team Milram         0:03:10  

9              Reine Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne                0:03:28  

10            Gorka Verdugo Marcotegui (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi       0:03:29

Team RadioShack on General Classification

21           Christopher Horner (USA)   0:04:44

107         Ben Hermans (Bel)   0:20:59 

122         Sergio Miguel Moreira Paulinho (Por)   0:24:49

129         Geoffroy Lequatre (Fra)   0:25:41 

151         Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)   0:28:28

160         Markel Irizar Aranburu (Spa)   0:34:59