Clement loses time in the sixth stage of the Dauphiné
LottoNL-Jumbo’s Stef Clement lost ground on the overall favourites in the Critérium du Dauphiné’s sixth stage. He finished the stage in 26th place, four minutes and six seconds behind Jakob Fuglsang, who won the stage in Motte-Servolex.
Fuglsang beat Chris Froome, Richie Porte and Fabio Aru in a sprint. Porte took over the lead from Thomas de Gendt. Clement dropped to place 18th.
“It was a very fast and tough day,” Sports Director Grischa Niermann said right after the finish. “We wanted to keep Stef in fourth place today and put everything towards achieving that. Stef did not have good legs today. We knew this was going to be the toughest stage for him with the steep climb in the end. The morale is still high, even if we hoped for a little bit better result today.”
Koen Bouwman remains the mountains leader and continues to ride in the polka dot jersey. The race continues with two more mountain stages this weekend.
“Today, there were few points to gather. Only the last climb of the day had a big amount of points, but we knew it would be a battle for the GC riders there.
“We decided that Koen would take a rest day today. He has been in the breakaway three times now. It is not so easy to be in the breakaway, and you cannot do that every time.”
The battle for the mountain jersey will be fierce. Thomas de Gendt lost the overall classification lead so will be aiming for the mountain jersey.
“De Gendt will do everything in the remaining stages to get it. If Koen wants to keep it, he needs to be in the breakaway in one of the coming days. That’s easily said, but very hard to do.”
Stage seven tomorrow finishes on the famous Alpe d’Huez.
