00:01It's time for one of the key stages of this Criterium de Dauphiné,
00:05the individual time trial which will help us to judge the form of the three big favourites.
00:10Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evanapool already went head-to-head in the sprint on stage one
00:15and this will be a key test as they build towards next month's Tour de France.
00:20It'll also be fascinating to see whether the under-23 world champion Ivan Romeo
00:24can keep hold of his yellow and blue jersey.
00:27The stage favourite is no doubt the reigning world and Olympic champion in this discipline, Remko Evanapool.
00:37Every time trial that I start I of course started to try to win it.
00:41It's a pretty nice course, not technical at all actually.
00:46Pretty much always straight except for the two corners I think and then the corner to the finish line
00:52so I think it's something that suits me.
00:55Fast start, hard middle part and then a fast finish so I think I just have to go all in
01:01with a good pacing strategy on the climb and then hope for the best.
01:07The course is fairly short, 17.4 kilometres between Champs-sur-Rhône and Saint-Pérez
01:12although the climb in the middle is steeper than the profile suggests
01:15and there's a bit of a headwind to deal with.
01:17It'll be maximum effort from start to finish for those who want a good result.
01:25Well the first time of note was set by the 2022 time trial world champion Tobias Foss.
01:31The Norwegian going around in 22 minutes at an average of more than 47 kilometres an hour
01:36and he confirmed that the day's climb was harder than expected.
01:42I have to admit I got really surprised when I did the recon and we saw the wall in front of us
01:45so I'm expecting some nuclear stuff from me when I was sending for you today.
01:50Nuclear stuff but how good do you think your time is?
01:53I don't think I have a chance to be honest.
01:55The home hopefuls were also looking to shine today,
01:59notably the former French time trial champion Remy Cavagna.
02:03The Groupama FDJ rider quickly caught and passed his minute man Ruben Guerrero.
02:10Thibaut Gernelec was also going nicely after his strong performances at this year's Tour de Romandie
02:15but he couldn't quite unseat Foss.
02:18Cavagna on the other hand was heading for the top of the leaderboard.
02:25Remy Cavagna looks like he may well find himself in the hot seat of this time trial.
02:32He's running out of time though.
02:34He does it by just under three seconds.
02:39I'd have been very happy with the top five but I can't see it happening.
02:42Top ten would be pretty satisfying given my recent form that you can't ask for too much.
02:47It's good though, it shows I'm in decent shape.
02:50Now I need to keep working to gain more seconds.
02:55The junior time trial world champion at Paul Sexas also put in a strong showing.
03:08The 18 year old, who is by far the youngest rider in this race, finishing just five seconds down.
03:13And Cavagna was eventually knocked off his perch as the big guns began to hit the course.
03:19Vingegaard's teammate Matteo Jorgensen was on an absolute flyer and the Paris Nice winner came in nearly 30 seconds quicker than the Frenchman as he stormed to the top of the leaderboard.
03:28Onto the big three then with Evanapool the first down the ramp and the world champion was clearly in no mood to mess around.
03:40By the intermediate checkpoint he was already 30 seconds faster than Jorgensen but how close were Vingegaard and Pogaccia?
03:46So Remco is going to go through faster, Vingegaard goes through second fastest time.
03:56And he's going to be behind both Remco Evenapool and Jonas Vingegaard by a quite considerable margin.
04:07Pogaccia on the back foot as Evanapool ripped around at an average of more than 50 kilometres an hour, a demonstration from the world's best time trialist.
04:18Vingegaard limited the damage pretty well, coming in 21 seconds down, but Pogaccia was 49 seconds down on the Belgian and 28 behind the Dane.
04:27The question now was would Evanapool also take the yellow and blue jersey?
04:35Realistically at this point only Florian Lipovic and Ivan Romeo could deny him and it would come down to a matter of seconds.
04:45Lipovic was agonisingly close, missing out by four seconds while Romeo was digging deep to defend his lead.
04:51Ivan Romeo coming up to the line now and he is just outside the time to hold on to his jersey.
05:04It was another supersonic effort from Evenapool as he blitzed the rest of the field to take the stage victory and the race lead.
05:11He's now finished first in his last four individual time trials stretching back to last summer's Olympics.
05:16This is the 62nd win of the Belgian's career and the 1,000th for his team, Soudal Quickstep.
05:23I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling good on the climbs, on the flats and in the descents as well.
05:30So I think it's a good step forward to what we have to expect for the next week and the next days and next month.
05:38So we just have to keep building and take it day by day and then for sure there will be a lot of pressure in the weekend from other teams but with this victory I think I'm confident I can do well.
05:51Evenapool taking his third win of the season by 21 seconds from Vingega and 38 from Jorgensen.
05:56Pogacar could only manage fourth behind the two Visma Lisa bike teammates with Lipovic in fifth.
06:03The GC now looks very different indeed with Evenapool holding yellow by four seconds from Lipovic.
06:09Romeo slips to third followed by van der Poel and Vingega while Pogacar is 38 seconds down in eighth place.
06:17Van der Poel still has the green jersey by 22 points from Pogacar with Evenapool up to third after his win today.
06:23No change though in the mountains classification where Paul Orselin still leads Louis Barre by four points.
06:37Evenapool also goes back into the white jersey as the best young rider ahead of Lipovic and Romeo.
06:43Well Thursday will be the final chance for the riders to catch their breath before we hit the mountains although there are still plenty of climbs on the menu.
06:49It will be sprinters versus punchers versus breakaway once again so join us tomorrow and thanks for watching.
