Critérium du Dauphiné: Mikkel Bjerg takes impressive stage 4 time trial win

Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) powered to a stage victory and into the race lead in the Critérium du Dauphiné’s individual time trial, beating Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Rémi Cavagna (Soudal Quick-Step) into second and third.

It was Cavagna who set an early competitive time on the 31km course, and he spent much of the afternoon in the hot seat, but it was a succession of Danes in Bjerg and Vingegaard who would unseat the Frenchman.

Bjerg’s winning margin of 12 seconds over Vingegaard, and a minute and 50 seconds over yellow jersey Christophe Laporte was enough to propel him into the race lead, his first leader’s jersey since 2019 and the first win of his professional career.

“I’ve worked so hard for this first pro victory, and I’m just so relieved that I finally got it now,” an emotional Bjerg said at the finish.

“I felt like I had so many chances to do it, and I just didn’t live up to my own expectations. Even this morning I doubted myself and said the course was too hard. My manager told me to just go for it today, that I had nothing to lose, and I’m just so happy.

“On the first climb I wanted to go hard but not above my limit, because there were some really hard climbs coming later in the race. I just stayed within my limits, did the descent as well as I could, and didn't take too many risks.”

Vingegaard was perhaps the biggest GC winner of the day, ahead of the real climbing in this race, but fifth-placed Ben O’Connor (AG2R Citroën) and sixth-placed Adam Yates (UAE Team ADQ) will also be happy with their strong performances, losing less than a minute to the defending Tour de France champion.

The day’s losers were David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), who all lost more than two minutes on Vingegaard.

“Now it looks like [Bjerg] will take the jersey, but hopefully I can take it in within the next few days,” Vingegaard said confidently at the finish.

With a ramp straight out of the gates and then a long, rising road in the final 10km, Wednesday’s time trial in France was a relatively testing one, and made harder by the temperatures that hit the high 20s under the warm summer sun.

It was Ryan Mullen (Bora-Hansgrohe) who set the early benchmark from the first wave of riders, stopping the clock at 39:23 in Belmont-de-la-Loire. With a few TT specialists slotted in early in the field, though, the Irishman’s spell in the hotseat did not last long, and it was Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers) who then set the next fastest time, coming in at 38:33, which would last longer.

The stage hadn’t got off to a good start for Ineos Grenadiers after Ben Turner abandoned mid-time trial after a crash, joining compatriot Ethan Hayter in Ineos’ list of dropouts before the halfway point of this race. Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R Citroën) also abandoned after crashing.

Velo Collection (Dario Belingheri) / Getty Images

Rémi Cavagna came close to winning stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné.

The first rider to go sub-38 minutes and overtake Castroviejo’s lead was Rémi Cavagna (Soudal Quick-Step), who put in an impressive effort to set a time of 37:55, a reward for the slightly quieter days he had had at the start of the race. The Frenchman’s time was the first really competitive time, even looking like a stage-winning benchmark at times, and stood for a long stretch.

With 15 riders to go, Jonas Vingegaard started his time trial, and went through the first time check 10 seconds faster than Cavagna, but by the second check he was a second down on the Soudal Quick-Step rider. Vingegaard’s performance made it look like Cavagna may be able to hold on to his lead, but it wasn’t long before Mikkel Bjerg took a huge chunk of time out of Cavagna, finishing in 37:28.

At the finish line, Vingegaard did go faster than Cavagna, but trailed Bjerg by 12 seconds. The Tour de France winner may have missed out on the stage win, and indeed the yellow jersey, but it was still a positive performance for the Dane who took time on all of his GC contenders. He sits in second, 29 seconds up on his closest overall competitor Ben O’Connor in fourth, with Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) in third.

Yellow jersey wearer Christophe Laporte clocked a time of 39:18, 1:50 down on Bjerg and enough to give up his race lead to the stage winner. The time trial provided the first big GC shake out of the race, but expect a lot to change as the peloton heads into the mountains for the rest of the week.