Primož Roglič stamps his authority as he takes stage two of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2020

Primož Roglič  took stage two of the Critérium du Dauphiné with a powerful seated attack with 700 metres to go, leaving the other favourites in his wake.

Team Ineos tried to control and dominate the race, but Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Pavel Sivakov faltered, leaving Egan Bernal isolated with Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) looking after Roglič, upping the pace, setting up the attack.

Bernal tried an attack while Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) also showed their cards, but it was Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) who was the strongest man as he rode to the line alone.

Roglič takes yellow from his teammate, Wout van Aert who was riding in a support role today.

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How it happened

The riders started in the town of Vienne, where they would take on a mix of rolling and hilly terrain before getting to the penultimate climb of the Côte Maillet, a category one climb which was followed by the finishing beyond categorisation climb of the Col de Porte (16.6km at 6.2 per cent) after a stage of 135km

An eight man break went up the road early on with Bruno Amirail (Groupama-FDJ), Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step), Jasha Sütterlin (Team Sunweb), Ben O'Connor (NTT Pro Cycling), Jerome Cousin (Total Direct Energie), Fabien Doubey (Circus-Wanty Gobert), Geoffrey Soupe (Total Direct Energie) and the King of the Mountains jersey-holder, Michael Schär (CCC Team).

The majority of the race was controlled by race leader Van Aert's team, Jumbo Visma along with Team Ineos.

It was with 44km to go where the riders hit the Maillet with the break holding a gap of 2-32 over the bunch. The leading group then started to break down under the pressure put in by Amirail and Schär, leaving just that pair up front.

Schär took the maximum points on the climb, cementing his lead in the the King of the Mountains competition for another day.

After the riders had gone over the top and negotiated a tricky descent, there was a period of flat roads in the valley. This brought a rather nasty crash that involved Colombian national champion, Sergio Higuita (EF Pro Cycling) and Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) with the rider from Ireland coming off the worst.

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The riders hit the final climb of the Col de Porte where the race came under the control of Team Ineos, who had brought their entire team onto the front.

Ahead Schär had sat up, leaving Amirail to go it alone on the slopes that exceeded 10 per cent. At this moment, with 16km to go, Van Aert finally lost touch.

Ineos upped the pace dramatically with 12km to go, with Dylan Van Baarle and Jonathan Castroviejo controlling the pace.

Amirail held on right up until 8.5km to go, just a couple of kilometres later Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) both lost contact with the group.

Not too long after that Froome showed that he could not hack the pace that was being set by his team-mate Michał Kwiatkowski and was dropped along with fellow Brit, Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott).

More and more general classification names lost touch, Enric Mas (Movistar), Rigoberto Urán (EF Pro Cycling), Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) and Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) all fell away over the next 2km.

Thomas failed to keep the pace up after Kwiatkowski finished his job and left the young Russian Sivakov, with the 2019 Tour de France champion, Bernal.

Sivakov also could not keep the pace, this is when Buchmann attacked. All the main favourites managed to follow apart from Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale).

Bernal tried to get away but Kuss pulled him back immediately, a few more failed moves tried to go before Roglič put in a powerful seated attack with 700 metres to go.

Bernal unable to follow looked for help from his rivals but could not find it. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) attacked, but was unable to bring back Roglič as the Slovenian took the win and makes it two out of two for Jumbo-Visma at the Dauphiné this year.

The race continues the climbing with an 157km stage from Corenc to Saint-Martin-De-Belleville, a dress rehearsal for stage 17 of the Tour de France in a few weeks time.

Results

Critérium du Dauphiné 2020, stage two - Vienne to Col de Porte (135km)

1. Primož Roglič (Slo) Jumbo-Visma, in 3-39-40

2. Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, at 8s

3. Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe

4. Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis, all at same time

5. Nairo Quintana (Col) Arkéa-Samsic, at 10s

6. Miguel Ángel López (Col) Astana

7. Daniel Martínez (Col) EF Pro Cycling

8. Mikel Landa (Esp) Bahrain-McLaren

9. Richie Porte (Aus) Trek-Segafredo

10. Egan Bernal (Col) Team Ineos, all at same time.

General classification

1. Primož Roglič (Slo) Jumbo-Visma, in 9-07-12

2. Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, at 12s

3. Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe, at 14s

4. Egan Bernal (Col) Team Ineos, at 16s

5. Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis, at 18s

6. Nairo Quintana (Col) Arkéa-Samsic, at 20s

7. Richie Porte (Aus) Trek-Segafredo

8. Mikel Landa (Esp) Bahrain-McLaren

9. Miguel Ángel López (Col) Astana

10. Daniel Martínez (Col) EF Pro Cycling, all at same time.