Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 Stage 4

June 11, 2025 The GC will be reshaped once again with an ITT starting in Charmes-sur-Rhône and finishing in Saint-Péray, just outside of Valence, after 17.4KM. The route heads North following the Rhône river but once the riders enter Les Croisières, they turn away from the river to take on the climb of Les Freydières which should create separation among the GC favorites. Les Freydières is 1.8KM long at 8.5% but is steepest at the bottom. The top is halfway into the stage with the rest of the course being downhill or flat to the finish. There is one time check on course with 6.9KM to go, just after the short descent off of Les Freydières. The run in is mostly straight with the exception of a 3/4 roundabout taken on the outside with 600M to go but it should not pose an issue. Former World ITT Champion, Tobias Foss of Ineos, set the early benchmark. It's been a few years since Rémi Cavagna of Groupama-FDJ was in time trial form but he is coming good and was the first to go quicker than Foss, beating the Norwegian by 3 seconds. When the top names in the GC started to roll off, the intermediate check times began to fall. Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike beat Cavagna's time at the check by 12 seconds and blew out to 28 seconds by the finish to give him the provisional lead. Current World and Olympic ITT Champion, Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep, smashed Jorgenson's time by 31 seconds at the intermediate check. He crossed the line 38 seconds faster than the American to set an average speed of 50.076KM/HR that would not be beaten. The only questions remaining were where the rest of the GC riders would land. Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike was 11 seconds slower than Evenepoel at the intermediate with Tadej Pogačar of UAE-XRG another 20 seconds behind Vingegaard at the same point. Vingegaard lost 21 seconds by the finish to Evenepoel but it was well ahead of Pogačar who lost 49 seconds to Evenepoel. Vingegaard took second on the stage with his teammate Jorgenson in third on the day. After race leader Iván Romeo of Movistar crossed the line at the finish, we could start taking stock of how the times shake out. Evenepoel did enough to take the overall lead by 4 seconds to Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe who really helped himself by gaining time in the breakaway yesterday. Romeo defended well to hold on to third, 9 seconds behind. Vingegaard is now in fifth at 16 seconds with Pogačar in eighth at 38 seconds. Other notable performances go to Eddie Dunbar of Jayco AlUla who finished eighth on the stage and Enric Mas of Movistar who lost over 2 minutes today and is likely out of GC contention.