Bradley Wiggins became the third Briton to win the Criterium du Dauphine after Spain’s Joaquin Rodriguez took the final 117.5km stage beween Pontcharra and La Toussuire on Sunday.
The Team Sky rider, who is a triple Olympic gold medallist and came fourth in the Tour de France two years ago, finished 1min 26sec ahead of the Australian Cadel Evans (BMC) in the overall standings, with the Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) another 23 seconds back. The Belgian Jurgen Van den Broeck (Omega-Lotto) took fourth in front of Katusha rider Rodriguez and the Frenchman Christophe Kerne (EUC), who won Friday’s stage. The 31-year-old Wiggins follows in the footsteps of Brian Robinson in 1961 and Robert Millar in 1990 as the only British winners of this traditional Tour de France warm-up race. The victory is a major boost to Wiggins ahead of the Tour, which starts on July 2. The Londoner showed his track skill by claiming the lead in the Grenoble time-trial but then produced a considerable effort on the mountain stages to control the race and mainatain his lead. “Everything was made possible by the time-trial; that is my speciality,” said Wiggins, whose eyes are now firmly on a successful Tour.
“I am just going to have to ride my race, not put myself in the red in trying to follow (Alberto) Contador and (Andy) Schleck. But it’s clear that the podium is certainly a real possibility.”
Wiggins rejected the suggestion that he had peaked too early for the race, a month ahead of the tough stages in the Pyrenees. “No, I don’t think so. I wasn’t bad today in the last mountain. My condition is not yet at 100 percent. I have my training programme. I can still improve.”
Stage winner Rodriguez, however, did not include Wiggins in his list of possible contenders for the Tour.
“It will be tougher fought than last year’s race as we will see the likes of Evans, Vinokourov, (Robert) Gesink and Van den Broeck back again.
