Primoz Roglic powers through pain to take yellow jersey from faltering Remco Evenepoel at Criterium du Dauphine

Published 07/06/2024 at 17:42 GMT

It is advantage Primoz Roglic with two stages remaining at the Criterium du Dauphine, after the Slovenian stormed to an impressive Stage 6 summit victory despite harbouring an injury. Roglic said afterwards that he is "limited with the left shoulder" following a crash a day earlier. But he nevertheless took the yellow jersey from rival Remco Evenepoel with a statement display.

Roglic admits he is ‘quite limited in left shoulder’ despite stunning Stage 6 win

Primoz Roglic says he was “limited with the left shoulder” but glad “the legs were working” as he bounced back from a crash to surge into the yellow jersey on Stage 6 of the Criterium du Dauphine.

The Slovenian was involved in a worrying incident on Thursday where a host of riders that also included GC rival Remco Evenepoel went down while descending.

But the Bora-Hansgrohe rider responded in style by dropping all of his rivals on his way to the summit finish at Le Collet d’Allevard to take the yellow jersey from the shoulders of a faltering Evenepoel.

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However, the four-time Grand Tour winner explained after the race that he had to fight through pain.

“I’m quite limited with the left shoulder actually,” Roglic said.

“But the legs were working, I can’t complain about the legs.”

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Roglic was followed by Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and team-mate Alexandr Vlasov on the podium, while Evenepoel was eighth after fading in the final four kilometres.

The Belgian finished 42 seconds behind Roglic and is now 19 seconds back in the GC standings with two stages remaining.

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“Finally I won a race, it was a while,” Roglic said.

“The whole team, the guys showed commitment from the very start, from day one. Then chasing the second stage.

“It didn’t work out yesterday which hit all of us quite hard. Today they showed a great performance so big thanks and we can enjoy today.”

Matteo Jorgensen (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished fifth to cut his gap to Evenepoel in the GC standings, with the American sitting third overall, 58 seconds behind Roglic.

"It’s just the first mountain top finish, tomorrow I think it will be the Queen Stage and the last one is super hard too. We will see, I will do my best," Roglic added.

Stage 7 is a 155.3km mountain stage from Albertville to Samoens 1600.

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You can watch the 2024 Criterium du Dauphine live and on-demand on discovery+.

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