Criterium du Dauphiné 2024 is the first of two prelude races that are leading up to Tour de France 2024. The Criterium du Dauphine 2024 will be followed by the Tour de Suisse 2024, before this year’s Tour de France commences in Firenze, Italy on June 29.

Stage 2 of Criterium du Dauphiné 2024 had been designed as a short, intensive and mountainous 142-kilometer ride from Gannat to Col de la Loge in southern France. The stage route featured two Category 2 climbs and two Category 3 climbs, before concluding with a climb to the finish line. Though categorized as Category 2 and 3 climbs, they featured very steep sections that would be challenging for most riders in the race peloton. Denmark’s Mads Pedersen (Team Lidl-Trek) was leading the General Classification following his sprint victory in yesterday’s stage 1.

An early escape group formed the long breakaway of the day. The optimists of the day were Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale Team), Mathis le Berre (Arkea – B&B Hotels), Jonas Gregaard (Lotto-Dstny), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and Filippo Conca (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team). The five riders formed a well-functioning breakaway quintet, which built a lead of approximately five minutes.

The lead of the front men was kept under control by teams such as PremierTech, Bora-Hansgrohe, and Ineos-Grenadiers which were very active at the front of the main peloton. The advantage of the front group had been reduced to approximately four minutes with sixty kilometers remaining.

It appeared the main peloton was grinding approximately one minute off the advantage of the breakaway group for every twenty kilometers ridden, so their lead was down to three minutes with forty kilometers left.

The riders were reacing theCote de Saint-Georges-en-Couzan – the second Category 2 climb of the day. Groupama-FDJ’s Quentin Pacher was leading the peloton, which was setting a very intensive pace. The lead of the front group was now down to 01:40 minutes. 22 kilometers remained.

Chris Froome (Team PremierTech) was dropped from the remains of the main peloton. Bora-Hansgrohe and Ineos-Grenadiers sent riders to the front.

Conca attacked from the front quintet with sixhundred meters of the category 2 climb remaining. He wanted to secure the mountain points for the Best Climber Competition. Le Berre initiated a chase and moved past the Italian shortly before the top.

The front group had a lead of approximately one minute with fourteen kilometers left. Would the breakaway optimists prevail in today’s stage 2 of Criterium du Dauphine 2024?

Uno-X Pro Cycling Team and Lidl-Trek sent their riders to the front of the chasing main peloton. They weren’t going to make things easy for the front quintet. Team Visma – Lease a Bike and EF Education-EasyPost joined the fun. 

The front quintet reached the final climb of the day. The climb would take the riders to the finish line. Eleven kilometers remained and they had an advantage of 35 seconds. The peloton was getting too close, so Armirail launched an attack.

Alexandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) increased the speed at the front of the peloton. He was joined by UAE Team Emirates’ Pavel Sivakov and EF Education-EasyPost’s Sean Quinn and Jonas Rutsch. 

Armirail, meanwhile, had managed to build a lead of 28 seconds with 8.5-kilometers remaining. Six kilometers from the finish his lead was down to 26 seconds. An acceleration from the main peloton would be needed to catch the Frenchman before the finish line.

Four kilometers remained and Armirail had a lead of 34 seconds. Meanwhile, race leader Mads Pedersen had been dropped from the main peloton on the climb.

Vlasov and Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) were pulling in the peloton.

Armirail entered the final kilometer with a lead of nineteen seconds. It appeared the stage favorites in the main peloton had been cheated by a rider from the day’s long breakaway. Wow, what a performance by the Frenchman no matter if he would be caught or not.

Armirail was caught with two hundred meters left. Uno-X rider Magnus Cort launched an attack and powered past Armirail to take the stage victory. Denmark’s Cort had switched to the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team from Team EF Education-EasyPost before this season.

Cort took the stage victory ahead of Primoz Roglic (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Matteo Jorgenson (Team Visma-Lease a Bike). Cort is the new leader of Criterium du Dauphine 2024 before tomorrow’s stage 3.

Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for additional race coverage from Criterium du Dauphiné 2024.

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