Dauphiné: Bouwman takes mountains lead, Battaglin sprints to 9th.
In the Critérium du Dauphiné’s stage five to Mâcon, Koen Bouwman took the mountain classification lead and Enrico Battaglin sprinted to ninth. Bouwman, winner two days ago, made the breakaway for the third time in a row and picked up enough points along the way to pass mountains leader, and race leader, Thomas De Gendt. With the 10 points, he leads the classification with five over De Gendt.
Phil Bauhaus won stage five with a sprint, with team LottoNL-Jumbo’s Battaglin closing ninth. Stef Clement maintained his fourth place overall behind De Gendt.
“Koen has the mountain jersey now,” Sports Director Grischa Niermann said. “He started very strongly by gathering points on the first col of the day. After that he was involved in every attempt to attack, but Lotto-Soudal would not let him go. In the end, he broke away again. And he said it was not his best day! Now, he is firmly in the lead."
“We wanted to guide Stef safely through today’s stage, to make sure he kept his fourth place. We succeeded. Enrico Battagalin tried to sprint, but afterwards he said he did not really have the space to ride a good sprint. He still managed to finish in ninth place.”
The real mountain climbs begin in tomorrow’s stage. It closes with the climb and descent of Mont du Chat.
“That climb is really steep: 8.5 kilometres with an average over 10 per cent,” Niermann added. “We will also see it again in the Tour de France. I expect a battle between the GC riders. Hopefully, Stef can ride along with the favourites there.”
