CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious rider Fred Wright powered to an impressive second place on stage two of the Criterium du Dauphine elite men’s road race in France yesterday, after a challenging 204.6km from Premilhat to Issoire – the same town where teammate Pello Bilbao won a Tour de France stage in 2023.
The day featured over 2,800 metres of climbing, making it a taxing effort for the pure sprinters. Despite the undulating profile and relentless pace, Wright held firm throughout, positioning himself perfectly for the finale.
After trying to ignite a move with 37km to go on stage one, Wright showed smart positioning and strong legs yesterday, locking onto the wheel of former teammate Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek in the final run-in.
Bahrain Victorious’ Robert Stannard played a vital role in the closing kilometres, expertly delivering Wright onto Milan’s wheel, allowing the Briton to launch his sprint and secure a well-earned second place behind one of the UCI WorldTour’s most dominant sprinters.
“I knew there was one wheel to pick on that kind of bunch sprint,” said Wright. “Having been teammates with Jonny, I know he’s got something quite special in terms of sprinting. Rob put me perfectly on his wheel, but unfortunately not much more I could have done to be honest, but yeah, second – I am really happy with it.
“We rode really well today, I think. We kept the general classification (GC) boys in front and then, yeah, to get a result in a sprint like that, I’ll take it – I’m happy with that.
“It was hot and pretty lumpy all day, that’s where I knew I had a bit of motivation going into a sprint like that, because the real fast boys can lose a bit of their kick and I tend to keep mine when it’s still quite hard.
“I said to Rob, there is going to be a pause into the last km because it sort of drags over the bridge – stick me on Jonny’s wheel.”
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