Pogacar wins first Dauphine ahead of Tour de France title defence

Reigning Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar wrapped up the Criterium du Dauphine on Sunday with a podium finish in the eighth and final stage, which was won by France’s Lenny Martinez.

A winner of three stages in total, the Slovenian dominated the 77th edition of the Dauphine to top the overall classification by 59sec ahead of Dane Jonas Vingegaard -- three weeks before the start of the Tour de France.

“It’s been a really amazing week,” Pogacar said.

“Once again today, the team did a great job. We managed to defend the (yellow) jersey and we can go home happy and prepare for the Tour.”

German Florian Lipowitz completed the podium, 2min 38sec behind Pogacar, while Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel came fourth at 4min 21sec.

Sunday’s final stage was a 133.3km mountainous trek from Val-d’Arc to Val-Cenis, with an uphill finish at the Plateau du Mont-Cenis.

The 21-year-old Martinez caught Spaniard Enric Mas with 8km to go to give France its first victory in this Dauphine, finishing 34sec ahead of Vingegaard and Pogacar.

Vingegaard tried to catch Martinez but was unable to shake off Pogacar. The Dane and the Slovenian then stopped attacking and rolled in together.

Pogacar now has 99 victories to his name -- a record for an active rider at just 26 years of age.

“There’s a lot of positives from this week and we turned all the negatives into positives, so it’s all good,” said Pogacar, who bounced back from a poor time-trial performance in stage four to lay down the gauntlet to his principal Tour rivals.

“There’s not much to do ahead of the Tour. I rest a bit, maybe some extra work for the time-trial, and then I’m ready,” the three-time Tour winner added.

The 2025 Tour de France runs from July 5-27, with Pogacar the firm favourite following his first Dauphine crown.

Meanwhile, French rider Romain Gregoire clinched the opening stage of the Tour of Switzerland on Sunday thanks to a late solo breakaway.

Gregoire edged countryman Kevin Vauquelin in second place by 20sec, with Dutch rider Bart Lemmen in third.

Pre-race contender Ben O’Connor was fifth, 1min 7sec behind, after a hilly 129.4km ride which started and ended in the town of Kuessnacht.

Gregoire, 22, powered to his first major victory of the season by splitting from the breakaway in rain-sodden conditions in the final descent in central Switzerland.

Agencies