Jumbo lays claim to Tour de France favourite status

After a blistering Critérium du Dauphiné, Adam Becket asks if anyone can beat the Dutch team in July

- Adam Becket

Jumbo-Visma marked themselves out as the team to beat at the Tour de France with a near-flawless eight days at the Critérium du Dauphiné in which they won three stages and the overall.

Even that result underplays the Dutch team’s stranglehold on the race in which they were in the hunt for the win every single day. Wout van Aert won on the opening day, then missed out on stage two as the break outfoxed the peloton, celebrated too early on stage three, was only narrowly beaten by Filippo Ganna in the time trial, won stage five, and missed out again as the break won stage six. When the mountains arrived on stage seven, Primož Roglič ran out of road while bearing down on Carlos Verona, and Jonas Vingegaard comfortably won stage eight while his team-mate wrapped up the overall.

In doing so Roglič won his second GC race of the year, after winning Paris-Nice in March; van Aert won his second points jersey of the year, after winning green at Paris-Nice. Jumbo won the team classification too, just to underline their dominance.