After finishing safely in the GC group yesterday, Max Poole proved his strong climbing legs again on todays big mountain stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné. The young British rider showed a great performance on the hardest day of the race so far and finished 5th after the team brought him into the final perfectly.
Only a small breakaway tried their luck on today’s stage seeing the bunch taking a controlled, but strong pace on the first of three big climbs of the day: the Col de la Madeleine. The team did a great job supporting Max throughout the day and bringing him into the hard final as fresh as possible. The break was caught back on the way to the last climb, where the race exploded with 5,5 kilometres to go. When the pace was going up, Max was able to follow the best on the slopes of the Col de la Croix de Fer, before two riders attacked and got a gap. Max was riding strongly in the chasing group, setting a high pace without going over the limit. He won the sprint of the group, seeing him finishing 5th on the day, taking the lead in the youth classification and getting close to a top 10 in the GC before tomorrows final stage.
