When he set out from Saint-Étienne Sunday morning for the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Lotto Soudal's Thomas De Gendt was focused squarely on the polka-dot jersey. Some 170.5 kilometres later, however, he was being helped into the yellow jersey, with legitimate ambitions of leading the race all the way to the true mountains.
The Belgian, a bona fide breakaway specialist, got himself up the road and led the way over every one of the eight categorised climbs, producing a particularly strong display on the three 15-kilometre finishing laps to shake himself free of his companions and keep the peloton at bay.
As well as fulfilling his objective of taking control of the mountains classification, he now leads the general classification by 48 seconds.
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"In the first 120 kilometres I wasn't thinking about the victory, but more about the mountains points. Today was my first race since Romandie, so one month without racing, and this week is more about training for the Tour de France for me. Today was meant to be a hard day for me, to get the intensity, and it still was, but I also had the victory by accident, and I'm really happy with that," De Gendt said in the winner's press conference in Saint-Etienne.
"I started to believe we could make it when we came in for the local laps and we still had almost four minutes. The peloton could only close the gap on the flat or on the climb – not on the six-kilometre downhill. When I was with Axel Domont alone [ed. on the penultimate lap], that's when I believed I myself could win it."
De Gendt now leads the race by 48 seconds ahead of Domont, with the true general classification contenders all 1:09 in arrears. The first question posed to him – light-heartedly – was whether he's now a potential winner of the race.
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