This year’s edition of Dauphiné Libéré doesn’t hesitate in terms of kicking off the GC battle. Yesterday’s first stage – a time trial over more than ten kilometers showed a very little difference of eight seconds between Tour de France rivals, Chris Froome and Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador. Today, they scenery was a 156 kilometer long mountainous ride from Tarae to the 13.6 kilometer long uphill finish to Col du Beál.

A break was allowed to go but Team Sky took the responsibility of narrowing the gap down before entering the final climb. At the foot of the ramp, the gap was still two minutes so other teams joined the fun at the front of the pack to pick up the speed. Meanwhile, Alessandro di Macchi (Canondale) decided to leave his former companions in the break to solo his way up the road.

Going up the uphill finish, Team Sky emptied the field of big names such as Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Michael Kwiatkowski (Omega-Pharma Quick Step) while Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador was shadowing Chris Froome (Sky). Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was on the wheel of the Spaniard seeming to wait for the right moment to make his move.

But the crucial move was made by Froome with 5.2 kilometers to go and only Alberto Contador was able to follow the British rider. Nibali fought his way back to the duo, which brought down the pace and in the standstill, Wilco Kelderman (Belkin) decided to counter-attack while Froome was forced to bridge the gap with Contador on his tail and soon, they were only down to six riders in the front and they constantly tested Froome’s reactions but the Sky-rider seemed invincible.

On the final kilometer, Chris Froome attacked relentlessly and he kept the pace high enough to distance everyone, except from Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador who remained on his wheel and finished second behind the Sky-rider. A strategy DS, Philippe Mauduit was content with:

“Even though the stage was short, it was a pretty hard day for everyone. As expected, a break took off and Team Sky managed the pace making. At the bottom of the final ascent, they picked up the pace significantly and a lot of strong riders were dropped from the back of the group quite early. When Chris Froome attacked, Alberto was on his wheel and was never in any big difficulties and he chose to stay behind all the way up to the finish line. I’m happy with his condition and I think it bodes well for the Tour already. Tomorrow’s stage will most likely be for the sprinters and we’ll make sure Alberto will be protected all day,” said DS, Philippe Mauduit.