Watch all , with the Tour de France, Tour de France Femmes and much more.
While Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) has shown that he is in a league of his own at the 2023 Criterium du Dauphine, the battle behind him is equally inspiring, especially for what it says about Australian cycling.
With one stage remaining in the Dauphine, Vingegaard holds a two-minute and 11-second advantage over Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates). Less than a minute behind Yates sits the Aussie trio of O’Connor, Hindley and Cooper.
O’Connor dropped from second to third overall last night but is only 13 seconds behind Yates and still has second in sight, a credit to his performance over the last seven days.
“It went pretty well,” O’Connor said after Stage 7, the toughest of them all. “I didn’t have my best legs, but what Jonas did is impressive.
“I tried to ‘play’ a bit on the Croix de Fer and lost some time to Jai Hindley, but I also had to try to get rid of other riders, which I managed,” said the 2021 Tour de France stage winner.
“At the end of the day, I’m still in the running for the podium. Since the beginning of the week, I have felt good and confident.”
Fellow West Australian Hindley finished third on the Dauphine’s queen stage. The 2022 Giro d’Italia champion moved up to fourth overall. He now sits two minutes and 36 seconds behind Vingegaard, and is only 12 seconds shy of the overall podium.
“As expected, it was a really tough day!” said Hindley after the stage, which included over 4000 metres of climbing.
“I really like these long climbs and felt pretty good today. On the last climb, no one was able to follow Vingegaard, but we had a good battle for the positions behind.
“I’m really happy to be on the podium today, it was not quite enough to move up to third overall but still I’m very satisfied with my race.”
Tonight’s final stage includes three category 2 climbs, two category 1 climbs, and a hors category (beyond categorisation) climb, the Col du Granier. The 152.8-kilometre route through the French Alps will be sure to push these riders to their limit in search of the final podium.
“We’ll see what’s still possible in the GC,” Hindley said. “Better recover quickly from today!”
Bendigo’s Haig, representing Australia’s Eastern states, also moved up a position in the general classification overnight.
Haig now sits in fifth overall. He reached the summit of the Col de la Croix de Fer sixth on Stage 7, six seconds behind O’Connor and 17 seconds behind Hindley, an impressive ride in its own right.
“It’s nice to be back up close to the front of a mountain stage again. One more very hard day [at the Criterium du Dauphine] before some time with the family,” Haig said on Instagram after his best result of the eight-day stage race so far.
Honourable additional mentions go to Aussies Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla) who has climbed his way up to 16th overall and Robert Stannard (Alpecin-Deceuninck) who had top 10 finishes in stages one and two.
While the focus is often on the winner of the race, to have not one but three Australians in the top five right now is an achievement worth celebrating – especially given the many barriers cyclists from Down Under face to finding and securing a pathway to race overseas, let alone challenge for the overall podium.
Beyond the Dauphine, these riders’ credentials and those of their fellow countrymen and women in the professional peloton are something other Australian cyclists can, and should, feel really proud of.
Like the legacy created by riders before them, this current generation of cyclists provides a benchmark for other up-and-coming riders when they race domestically over the Australian summer. And they show through their strength, their work ethic, and their fast-increasing collective achievements, that where there is a will to achieve on the world stage, there really is a way.
The eighth and final stage saves the Dauphine’s best for last with six categorised climbs scattered along a 152.8-kilometre course from Le Pont-de-Claix to La Bastille. Watch all the action from 9:10pm AEST on SBS On Demand and 9:15pm AEST on SBS VICELAND.
