Dauphiné stage 6: Julian Alaphilippe wins by inches

Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) spent all but 12km of Friday’s stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné out front, but it was only a final lunge at the line that found him a winning margin over strong breakaway partner Gregor Mühlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe).

The Frenchman, who won two stages and the King of the Mountains jersey at the Tour de France last year, took the win by just two or three inches after struggling to come round the Austrian in a 2-up sprint at the end of stage 6.

Mühlberger had led out and opened up the sprint on the streets of Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, and it was only by throwing his bike at the line that Alaphilippe had been able to edge ahead of the 25-year-old.

After getting caught in the closing kilometres one day earlier, Alessandro De Marchi (CCC) trailed in for third place. The Italian had spent the day with the first two finishers, but was left behind after the three had engaged in a series of attacks towards the top of the Col de Beaune. He was unable to reconnect with them on the technical descent.

The 1,210-meter cat. 2 climb, that summited 7.5km from the finishing line, was the highest of eight classified climbs that littered the final two-thirds of the 229km stage from Saint-Vulbas Plaine de l’Ain.

With the three-man break having gone clear long before these obstacles, the bunch of main contenders had a relatively passive day before it heads higher into the French Alps on stage 7.

There was a mechanical for leader Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), an attack from Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Gobert) and a crash for Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), but the GC remained largely unchanged. The only notable mover overall was double stage winner Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), who plummeted from 5th t0 34th place now the race is in the mountains.

Yates remains in yellow, 4-seconds ahead of Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida), with Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) and Fuglsang both sitting within another 3-seconds.

“We’re all still very close,” observed Yates.