Young Slovenian Janez Brajkovic enjoyed what could turn out to be his last day of calm in the race leader’s yellow jersey at the Dauphine Criterium on Friday.
However, with a killer day of climbing on the sixth stage expected yesterday, featuring the 13.8km climb to Alpe d’Huez, Brajkovic knew he could come under attack from his main challenger, Alberto Contador.
“It’s going to be hard stage, there will be a lot of attacks for sure,” said Brajkovic, who held a lead of 1 minute, 41 seconds on the two-time Tour de France champion Contador.
Contador is using this week’s race to fine tune his form for the defense of his Tour de France crown next month.
While he has said he is simply in training mode, stage six could prove just too tempting for the Spanish climbing specialist to ignore.
The 151.5km ride from nearby Crolles to Alpe d’Huez takes in four climbs, including two that have been rated hors categorie (unclassified), the most difficult in bike racing.
Brajkovic said he had little or no experience of racing on the long roads that lead to the alpine passes, and was simply hoping he had the legs to follow Contador if he went.
While he has only had to battle Contador once so far, when the Spaniard attacked on the climb to Risoul on Thursday, he knows a succession of climbs will be a much tougher test.
“This race is not his [Contador] primary goal, but if he feels really good then he will attack. It’s hard not to attack when you’ve got good legs. I would do the same thing,” Brajkovic said.
In what could be a sign of things to come, Contador allowed one of his climbing lieutenants, Daniel Navarro, off the leash on Friday and the 26-year-old Spaniard seized the day.
After spinning past a small lead group on the difficult 17.5km climb to Chamrousse, the Spaniard belied his lack of real downhill skills to hold off a two-man chase on a winding 22km descent into Grenoble.
He came over the finish line 34 seconds ahead of Italian Eros Capecchi of the Footon-Servetto team and Francaise des Jeux’s young French hope Thibault Pinot to savor the biggest win of his career.
“My work is obviously to help Alberto [pacing] when he needs it on the climbs, but today I had the green light to go for it myself,” said Navarro, one of several Astana riders fighting for a Tour de France place. “I decided to go for it and it worked. I know I’m not a great downhiller, but when I crested the climb I knew I had enough of a lead to hold off the chasers.”
Apart from the two-man chase of Navarro, little happened on the day before the entire peloton will appreciate every last ounce of energy saved.
Brajkovic and Contador were even seen enjoying a conversation as they sat riding tempo in a main peloton, which trailed a six-man breakaway by a few minutes.
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