Slovenia’s Janez Brajkovic secured the biggest stage race win of his career on Sunday when he beat Spain’s Alberto Contador into second place at the Dauphine Criterium.
Brajkovic, who races for Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack team, finished the week-long race with a lead of 1 minute, 41 seconds on two-time Tour de France champion Contador.
The race was missing a host of star names who will be competing at the Tour de France on July 3 to July 25, but for Brajkovic the presence of two-time champion Contador was enough.
“Actually, I don’t care [who is here],” said the Slovenian, who is only beginning to display the kind of potential he showed when he won the world under-23 time trial title in 2004. “This is the Dauphine and whether there’s the world’s top 20 riders here or not makes no difference. To have raced against Contador and won is enough. He’s the best rider in the world and although he is not on top form right now, he can win just about any race he wants to.”
Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky won the final stage held over 148km between Allevard-les-Bains and Sallanches after dominating a circuit on which French legend Bernard Hinault won the world title 30 years ago.
An eight-man breakaway formed as soon as Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin attacked at the 1km mark and they went on to build a lead of three and a half minutes inside the first 20km, but with several teams not represented at the front, Boasson Hagen helped drive the chasing peloton hard and as the leaders reached the 50km mark to begin the 11.2km climb over the category two Cote des Rafforts their lead had evaporated to just 40 seconds.
Eventually they were reeled in and a 17-man lead group came into Sallanches with a lead of just over 1 minute, 30 seconds, but with the steep 2.4km Domancy climb to negotiate five times on a wet and slippery circuit, they were far from safety.
An acceleration by Garmin’s David Millar with 39km remaining only served to prompt Boasson Hagen to counter, and when the Norwegian flew past it was game over for the big Scot.
Boasson Hagen was joined by four counterattackers, but on the approach to the final climb at Domancy he pulled away again, keeping a fast cadence despite the climb’s 9.2 percent average gradient to leave everyone in his wake.
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