Australia’s Luke Durbridge, riding for Orica-GreenEdge, edged Britain’s triple Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins to win the 5.7km Criterium du Dauphine prologue on Sunday.
The 21-year-old junior world time trial champion and national time trial champion crossed the line 1 second up on Wiggins in the race against the clock in what is a key tune-up race for next month’s Tour de France.
“I wasn’t expecting this, I was more looking at finishing in the first five,” said Durbridge, who thus took his maiden win on the WorldTour. “It all went well, I was able to ride quick and finish quick. It was the right choice to set off among the first riders. We’d seen the weather forecast and we were worried about the rain which was at risk of falling in the afternoon.”
Defending champion Wiggins, who has been in fine form this season winning the Paris-Nice and Tour of Romandie stage races, said he was satisfied with his result.
“I am happy enough to finish second, but it is all about the whole week and not just this prologue,” he said. “I could not have asked for more than what I did today.”
“It is always the same thing in prologues. When there is more than three hours between the first starters and the last ones, the conditions can vary,” Wiggins added. “I am where I want to be. We are now approaching the Tour de France. We are less than four weeks away from the start of the race and there is not much training left to do.”
“Now its really down to race time,” he said.
Behind the front two Astana’s Andriy Grivko took third at 3 seconds, with Spain’s Carlos Barredo fourth and Germany’s world time trial champion Tony Martin fifth, 5 seconds behind.
Further back came Australia’s Tour de France titleholder Cadel Evans in ninth at 6 seconds.
With Wiggins showing superb form this season ahead of a renewed assault on the Tour de France yellow jersey — he crashed out on stage seven last year — this week’s race should also reveal how Evans is shaping up less than a month before the race start.
Evans has had a lackluster season so far, but Evans’ sporting director at BMC John Lelangue says the Australian — a four-time runner-up at the Dauphine — has major ambitions this week.
“Cadel made a very good come back to competition, he only lost time on the specialists and he is very well ranked among the favorites,” said Lelangue, who believes the fight for the overall will really take place during the time trial on Thursday. “He will have to stay safe during the coming stages and after this prologue, we have nice perspectives for the overall.”
Yesterday’s first stage was to be a 187km run from Seyssins to Saint-Vallier.
The race finishes on Sunday with a 124.5km ride from Morzine to Chatel.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
WORLD SERIES: ‘The individuals that were involved in that last night was a very small segment of the east Los Angeles community,’ the Los Angeles county sheriff said Rowdy crowds took to the streets of Los Angeles after the LA Dodgers won the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, setting a city bus on fire, breaking into stores and lighting fireworks. A dozen arrests were reported by police on Thursday, but officials said that most fans celebrated peacefully. Video showed revelers throwing objects at police in downtown LA as sirens blared and officers told them to leave the area on Wednesday night after the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the MLB World Series at Giants Stadium in New York. Another video showed someone standing atop