Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 Stage 8

June 15, 2025 Today's profile looks like a trend line up and to the right. The stage is almost all uphill for the 133KM between Val-d'Arc and Plateau du Mont-Cenis with a total of 3,500M of elevation. The first real test of the day comes halfway through the stage with the Col de Beaune (6.7KM at 6.7%). The descent takes the riders into Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne where they head up the valley road and climb the Côte de Saint-André (2.5KM at 7.5%) and the Côte d'Aussois (6.3KM at 6.1%). There is a brief descent into Sollières-Sardières with 23KM to go but the road continues to rise all the way to the base of the final climb, the Col du Mont-Cenis (9.7KM at 7%). The top is 5KM from the finish by the banks of the Lac du Mont-Cenis above 2,000M, less than 10KM from the Italian border. Romain Bardet of Picnic-PostNL went to the start line between rows of his peers, giving him a memorable goodbye to the peloton. A group of 11 got away including Maxim Van Gils of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike, Tobias Foss of Ineos, Valentin Paret-Peintre of Soudal Quickstep, Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious, Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost, Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R, Enric Mas and Iván Romeo of Movistar, Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Alexey Lutsenko of Israel-Permier Tech. They had a lead of 2 minutes 30 seconds with 59KM to go, on the descent into Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne. Mas was threatening the GC spot of Tobias Johannessen of Uno-X Mobility so they were forced to do the chasing in the peloton. Van der Poel attacked the break and had a 45 second head start when he made the turn to start the Côte de Saint-André with 48KM to go. He reached the top as rain started to fall with 50 seconds on the rest of the break and 2 minutes 40 seconds on the peloton. The race set into a holding pattern. When van der Poel crested the Côte d'Aussois, he extended his lead to 1 minute 10 second on the original break and 2 minutes 45 seconds on the peloton. He started to lose steam though with 25KM to go and was caught by the break led by a charging Romeo with 16KM to go near the base of the Col du Mont-Cenis. They started the climb with 1 minute 15 seconds with Uno-X Mobility still pulling the peloton along. UAE-XRG took control in the bunch with 8.5KM to the top of the climb but the pace was not one meant to split the race but more for just getting to the finish together. Up front, the attacks started going with about 7KM to climb. Mas made the first decisive move that only Healy and Martinez could handle. Healy was popped 500M later leaving just Mas and Martinez. Behind, Johannessen had to make a move to keep Mas in check. He was followed by Carlos Rodríguez of Ineos, then Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike which forced UAE-XRG to follow as well. At the same time, a touch of wheels further back in the peloton brought a few riders down including Eddie Dunbar of Jayco AlUla and Paul Seixas of Decathlon AG2R. Everyone was able to get going again but the race was quickly moving up the road. Tim Wellens regained control of the favorites group which was reduced to 10 riders. Johannessen tried again but never got more than 30M off the front. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep was next to move but Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar were right there on his wheel but third overall, Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe was not present. They caught Johannessen with 3.5KM to climb and were now just 50 seconds behind Mas and Martinez. Martinez was not giving pulls to Mas but was able to follow every little dig Mas put it. With under 3KM to climb, Martinez attacked the Spaniard who shook his head and tried to lift his effort but had nothing left in the tank to chase. Vingegaard attacked the group containing Pogačar, Johannessen, Evenepoel and Valentin Paret-Peintre, who was in the break and fell back to help Evenepoel with the pace. Only Pogačar could follow this move and did some work with Vingegaard to pull away. At the top of the climb, Martinez was alone and 50 seconds ahead of Pogačar and Vingegaard which was enough to seal the victory after a difficult week of racing for the Frenchman. Vingegaard rolled across the line to take an uncontested second place ahead of Pogačar in third. Pogačar seemed completely in control today and took the overall by 59 seconds to Vingegaard and 2 minutes 38 seconds to Lipowitz who defended well against Evenepoel. The crash near the bottom of the Col du Mont-Cenis hurt Seixas in the GC. He slipped from sixth to eighth but it's still a performance he can be proud of at just 19 years old.