One day after Yury Trofimov’s big solo win in Gap, Simon Spilak delivered an almost identical performance to make it two in a row for Katusha in the Criterium du Dauphiné. The Slovenian was the only survivor of a 17-rider break in the fifth stage of the race while behind Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) attacked race leader Chris Froome (Sky) on a descent. Sky brought the Spaniard back and instead Wilco Kelderman (Belkin) escaped to take back 9 seconds in the overall standings

 

After the first mountain stage, Katusha seemed to be out of the game in the Criterium du Dauphiné as all their GC riders lost lots of time on the Col du Beal. Since then, however, the team has hit back in the most impressive way.

 

It all started in the third stage when the team showed their strength by reeling in a strong break in the finale and even though they failed to come away with a result, the performance set the tone for the next few stages. Yesterday Yury Trofimov took a fantastic solo win in Gap when he emerged as the strongest from an early breakaway and today his teammate Simon Spilak achieved a similar feat.

 

After a very fast start to the stage that made it impossible for anyone to attack for a very long time, a 17-rider group finally got clear after the first climb of the Col de Manse. Already here Spilak showed his strength as he was the first rider at the top of the climb and having been joined by his 16 companions, he pressed on to build an advantage.

 

Behind, Sky showed no interest in reeling in the break but things got serious on the descent from the Col de la Morte inside the final 40km when Chris Froome’s key rival Alberto Contadro attacked on the descent. The Spaniard hit the final climb of the Cote de Laffrey with a 45-second advantage.

 

Sky avoided hitting the panic button and used David Lopez, Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte to gradually reel in the Spaniard shortly after the top. Meanwhile, Spilak kept his calm in the splintering front group before he launched his move one kilometre from the top.

 

The Slovenian quickly got a big gap and while the rest of the group was finally caught by a peloton that never slowed down, he did a fantastic job to always keep a 40-second advantage. In the end, he had plenty of time to celebrate Katusha’s second stage win and make up for his poor performances in the first few stages.

 

Behind, the attacking continued as many riders were keen to exploit the fact that Sky were left with just 3 riders in the 20-rider group. Even Froome himself had to respond to some attacks but when Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Wilco Kelderman attacked he didn’t react.

 

The youngsters did an impressive job to stay away to the finish, with Kelderman winning the sprint for second to score 6 bonus seconds. 3 seconds later Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) who had been part of the early break, won the sprint for fourth, meaning that Kelderman took back 9 seconds to move into the same time as Contador in the overall standings.

 

Froome now leads both Contador and Kelderman by 12 seconds as he heads into tomorrow’s sixth stage which is mostly flat but has a very lumpy finale. The riders face two small climbs inside the final 20km and a short 15% hill just 2km from the line, meaning that it could be a stage for puncheurs or very strong sprinters.

 

A very hilly course

After yesterday’s stage that suited a breakaway, the fifth leg seemed to be another good one for the attackers as it brought the riders over 189.5 very hilly kilometres from Sisteron to La Mure. After a flat start, the riders would face no less than six categorized climbs in the final 130km, with the Cold e Manse being the first one after 68.5km of racing and the Cote de Laffrey being the final one just 20.5km from the line. From there, it was rolling terrain all the way back to the finish in La Mure.

 

For the fifth day in a row, the riders took the start under beautiful sunny conditions but the sweltering heat that dominated the first three days had abated a bit and things were a lot more bearable. All riders that finished yesterday’s stage took the start and they prepared themselves for a true war on a stage that had breakaway written all over it.

 

A fast start

Hence, it was no surprise to see that the start was extremely fast and the first part developed into a fierce battle as the riders sped along at a very fast speed. The first significant move came from fourteen riders but after 11km of racing, things were back together.

 

At the 14km mark, a big crash brought down several riders, including Sylvain Chavanel, Jerome Pineau (both IAM), Jose Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar), Hayden Roulston (Trek), Danny Pate (Sky) and Jack Bobridge (Belkin). Most riders were able to continue but Pineau had to leave the race with a hand injury. Later in the stage, Nerz and Roulston also had to succumb and withdrew from the race.

 

A strong group

The peloton took it easy for a few kilometres to allow the injured riders to rejoin them but at the 25km mark, they resumed their fight. Lots of attacks were launched but after an hour of racing – in which 44.2km had been covered despite the small ceasefire – things were still together.

 

At the 44km mark, the elastic seemed to snap when 9 riders took off. Dimitri Gruzdev (Astana), Daryl Impey (Orica), Blel Kadri (AG2R), Stig Broeckx (Lotto), Damiano Caruso and Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), Simon Spilak (Katusha), Michal Golas (OPQS) and Dries Devenyns (Giant) made up a strong group that quickly got a 55-second gap over the peloton. Luca Wackermann (Lampre-Merida) and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) both tried to bridge the gap on their own but none of them had any success and soon they were back in the peloton.

 

Europcar lead the chase

KOM leader Kevin Reza had missed the move but his biggest rival De Marchi was in there, meaning that Europcar had to chase hard. The French team got some assistance from a NetApp-Endura rider and they managed to bring the gap down to 35 seconds. However, they soon started to lose ground again and when they hit the Col de Manse, they were 55 seconds behind.

 

The peloton hadn’t given up yet and so the bunch started to splinter due to the fast pace. Kiriyenka (Sky), Taarämae (Cofidis), Jérôme (Europcar), Offredo (FDJ), Howard (Orica), Bobdridge (Belkin) were some of the first to get dropped and later Reza also had to succumb to the pace. Surprisingly, Igor Anton (Movistar) and Michal Kiwatkowski (OPQS) also fell behind.

 

The break splits up

De Marchi and Spilak dropped their companions in the front group while Chérel (AG2R), Voeckler and Sicard (Europcar), Silin (Katusha) and Bakelants (OPQS) attacked in a quest to bridge the gap. Voeckler was soon dropped from that group and his teammate Sicard also got into difficulty but the rest of the group pressed on while the breakaway started to splinter further up the road.

 

Spilak got clear on his own and was 34 seconds ahead of the peloton as he neared the summit. He crested the summit as the first rider ahead of De Marchi, Caruso, Impey, Kadri, Darwin Atapuma (BMC) and Silin, as Atapuma had now also attacked from the peloton.

 

A nw group is formed

A lot of riders had attacked while others had fallen back to the peloton but on the descent, a regrouping took place. A 10-rider group with  Impey (Orica), Kadri (AG2R), Denifl (IAM), Caruso and De Marchi (Cannondale), Atapuma (BMC), Silin and Spilak (Katusha), Devenyns (Giant) and Huzarski (NetApp) emerged while Gautier (Europcar) and Bakelants (OPQS) were 15 seconds behind. Then it was a group with Le Mével (Cofidis), Chérel (AG2R), De Clercq (Lotto) and Vichot (FDJ) and finally Jens Voigt (Trek) who had attacked on his own.

 

The peloton was now 45 seconds behind and decided to slow down after a very fast start. The six nearest chasers combined forces and bridged the gap after 81km of racing. Voigt fought hard for some time but made the junction at the 87km mark to make it 17 riders in the lead.

 

De Marchi scores points

The peloton allowed the gap to grow to 3.31 but as De Clercq is only 2.47 behind Froome in the GC, they upped the pace. At the 95km mark, the gap was down to 2.50 and from there they kept it stable at around 3 minutes for a long

 

Meanwhile, De Marchi made use of the climbs to move into the virtual lead of the KOM classification. On the second ascent he led De Clercq, Denifl and Vichot across the line and on the third one he was first ahead of Caruso, Huzarski and Gautier. In the intermediate sprint, De Clercq took maximum points ahead of Huzarski and Silin.

 

Cofidis lead the chase

Winner Anacona (Lampre) and Cayetano Sarmieno (Cannondale) who was on his own far back, abandoned the race in the ffed zone while up ahead, the escapees hit the fourth climb with a 2.50.advantage. Devenyns was struggling on the slopes  but made it to the top with the best, with De Marchi leading Caruso, Denifl and Atapuma over the top.

 

The gap was still around 3 minutes by the time they started to climb the Col de la Morte. Even though they had Le Mevel in the break, Cofidis started to chase, probably to try to set up Julien Simon for a sprint win. As a consequence, the peloton started to splinter again and many riders dropped off.

 

Visconti attacks

Up ahead, Caruso was doing a lot of work for his teammate De Marchi and he reacted swiftly when Bakelants tried to attack. Near the top, he hit the front again to lead out De Marchi for the sprint, with De Marchi crossing the line in first position ahead of Caruso, Denifl and Bakelants.

 

Behind, Cofidis again stopped their work and this caused the pace to go down. Giovanni Visconti exploited the situation to take off and he was quickly joined by Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp). However, Contador gave the first hint of his intentions when he asked Sergio Paulinho to shut it down.

 

Paulinho takes off

While Bakelants and De Clercq attacked on the descent, Paulinho and Geraint Thomas (Sky) took control off the peloton. A few moments later, Enrique Sanz (Movistar) attacked and he was joined by Paulinho, with the pair quickly building a significant advantage.

 

Up ahead Bakelants and De Clercq had been brought back and instead Le Mevel and Cherel opened a solid advantage. They hit the bottom of the final climb as the leaders and Cherel quickly dropped his companion.

 

Contador makes his move

In the peloton, a drama had started to unfold as Contador had attacked on the descent. He was joined by Guillaume Bonnafond (Ag2r) but the Frenchman quickly fell off the pace.

 

At the bottom of the descent, he was 55 seconds ahead of the peloton which was 2.45 behind Cherel and he had now caught Paulinho and Sanz. As Paulinho took a hard turn on the front to launch his captain, Sanz fell off the pace and soon Contador was left on his own.

 

Spilak takes off

He quickly passed Devenyns, Kadri and Voigt as the chase group had now started to splinter. Behind, David Lopez was setting a steady tempo for Sky but it was enough to again put Kwiatkowski and Anton in difficulty, with the former being supported by several of his teammates in his quest to get back to the main group.

 

Cherel was caught by Spilak, Impey, De Clercq, Atapuma and Bakelants and a little later Caruso and Silin also made the junction. The final rider to make it back to the front was Huzarski but one kilometre from the top, the cooperation was destroyed when Spilak took off on his own.

 

Porte brings Contador back

The Slovenian quickly opened a massive gap and was far ahead when he crested the summit. Behind Contador had picked up several riders and Vichot, Denifl, Gautier and De Marchi were all able to stay on his wheel, making it to the top with the grand tour star.

 

Behind, Sky had put down the hammer as Richie Porte had now taken over the pace-setting and his hard riding had whittled the group down to just around 15 riders. At the top of the climb, he had the Contador group in sight and a few moments after cresting the summit, it was back together.

 

New attacks

Tanel Kangert (Astana) launched an immediate counterattack which forced Mikel Nieve into work for Sky. The Basque brought the Astana rider back while Spilak continued to increase his advantage that was now 45 seconds over his nearest chasers.

 

Nieve continued to set a steady pace on the front but things got dangerous when Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) launched an attack. He was joined by Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Sebastien Reichenbach (IAM) and the trio made it across to the chasers. Romain Bardet (Ag2r) also made the junction and so Porte had to go back to work.

 

Froome makes a move

The Australian brought the group back but now the Sky riders were starting to get tired and the door was open for new attacks. Bardet was the first to try and when he failed, Caruso gave it a go.

 

Surprisingly, Porte set off in pursuit and as Fuglsang and Yates also joined the move, Froome bridged the gap. This forced Contador to shut it down, opening the door for a counterattack from Yates.

 

Kelderman takes off

The Brit was joined by Kelderman and the pair soon got a gap and now Froome had to chase himself. Nibali and Van Den Broeck exploited the situation to attack but Froome brought them back.

 

Up ahead, Spilak held off his chasers and had plenty of time to celebrate his win. Meanwhile, Nieve did his best to reel in Kelderman and Yates but the youngsters held on to take 2nd and 3rd. 3 seconds later Impey won the sprint for 4th to bring a dramatic day to an end.