Dauphiné stage 5: Wout van Aert wins again, beating Bennett in sprint

One day after taking his first WorldTour win in the stage 4 time trial, Wout van Aert underlined his versatility with victory from a bunch sprint on stage 5 of the Critérium du Dauphiné.

The 24 year old year produced a powerful finish at the end of Thursday’s leg to Voiron to get the better of stage 3 winner Sam Bennett and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step).

“This is unbelievable,” Van Aert said after the victory, “I never expected to beat Sam Bennett here.”

The Jumbo-Visma rider was wearing the green jersey of points leader in the race, having also taken a third and second place in earlier group sprints. His two consecutive stage wins have only strengthened the former world cyclocross champion’s position in that competition.

Van Aert took the victory after a technical final kilometers, which featured multiple roundabouts and turns. Van Aert said it was important to have good positioning in the bunch in the final push to the line.

“We knew that in the last two kilometers it was going to be very curvy and technical with all those roundabouts,” van Aert said. “My teammates brought me well, and I positioned myself behind the leadout of Bennett in the wheel of [Julian] Alaphilippe. I launched my sprint in the last corner. When I passed Julian, I knew it was alright. My second win in a row.”

Adam Yates, meanwhile, finished in the bunch to maintain his overall lead in the race. The Mitchelton-Scott rider commands a 4-second lead on Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida) and 6-seconds on American Tejay van Garderen as the race now heads towards its concluding weekend in the mountains.

Inevitably, most of the race was led by an innocuous breakaway – formed with an attack at the gun by Yoann Bagot (Vital Concept), and soon joined by Stéphane Rossetto (Cofidis) and Alessandro De Marchi (CCC) in the following ten kilometers.

The group never gained much more than three minutes on the 201km stage from Boën-sur Lignon, with the bunch all too aware of it being the last opportunity for a gallop in this year’s Dauphiné.

Nonetheless, with 3km to go, the trio still held a 15 second lead as Bora-Hansgrohe, Bahrain-Merida and UAE-Emirates all contributed to the chase.

De Marchi struck out solo with 2km to go, was pulled back by Rossetto, then jumped him again just as the bunch made contact.

A counter attack from strongmen Philippe Gilbert (Deceuninck-Quick Step) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) did threaten to throw another spoiler on the sprinter’s day, but Bora’s Shane Archbold brought it back before Alaphilippe jumped past his team mate to open up the sprint.

Van Aert played it perfectly though. Coming from several wheels back out of a 90-degree turn, he found his own clear passage down the right of the chicaning finish straight, then powered into the middle of the road for a two handed salute at the line.

After the win, Jumbo Visma director Grischa Niermann said the victory brings van Aert one step closer to securing the green points jersey.

“This is a very nice win,” Niermann said. “With a view to the green jersey, we wanted to get involved in the sprint and grab the necessary points. It’s great that Wout wins.”

The last rider to win two Dauphiné stages in a row was the currently crash injured Chris Froome in 2015.