Porte punishes Froome, Kennaugh takes stage

L’ALPE D’HUEZ, France: Australian Richie Porte of the BMC team turned the screws on Chris Froome in Saturday’s seventh stage of the Criterium du Dauphine won by the latter’s Team Sky teammate Peter Kennaugh.

With just one stage to go on Sunday (today), Porte spurted at the end of a gruelling day’s racing to gain valuable seconds on direct rivals for the overall race victory, putting a further 23sec between himself and former teammate Froome, in second at 1min 02sec.

Defending champion Froome, a three-time winner of the Tour de France, couldn’t stick with Porte’s acceleration on the last 2km of the 168km ride from Aosta to the epic L’Alpe d’Huez climb and summit finish via the Col de Sarenne.

Astana’s Danish rider Jakob Fuglsang, a silver medallist in the road race event at last year’s Rio Olympics, did manage to tail Porte and now stands third in the overall classification, at 1min 15sec.

Froome’s Team Sky teammate Kennaugh, who won gold as part of the British team pursuit team at the 2012 Olympics, soloed to the stage win after pulling away from British compatriot Ben Swift (UAE Team Emirates) in the final three kilometres.

Kennaugh described his victory as “incredible”.

“It’s always hard to win a mountain stage but I have good form ahead of July,” the Manxman said in reference to the Tour de France.

“It took us a while to make the break, but once the front group was established I knew I had a good chance. I targeted the top of col de Sarenne.

“Hat’s off to Ben Swift for having stayed with me up there. Initially he was gonna help (Diego) Ulissi. We’ve known each other since we were nine years old so I knew he’s someone able to climb.”

Sunday’s eighth and final stage is another testing mountain ride, 115km long over three cols (Saisies, Aravis, Colombiere) before a final climb to the finish line at the Plateau de Solaison, high in the Alps.