Wiggins In Yellow In Criterium du Dauphine

Last updated : 04 June 2012 By Kev Monks

Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins took over the leaders yellow jersey as BMC's Cadel Evans won the first stage of the Criterium Dauphine this afternoon.

A 187km stage from Seyssins to Saint-Vallier saw Giovanni Bernaudeau (Europcar), Markel Irizar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda), Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) and Yukihiro Doi (Argos-Shimano) get clear with less than five kilometres gone.

They were thirteen minutes clear after 45kms but with the teams sharing the work, their lead was soon brought back under control.

There were a number of crashes. One involved Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who got up and carried on but was due to go to hospital at the end of the stage.

Ireland's Dan Martin was another who crashed but he carried on as Giovanni Bernaudeau of Europcar, who had been first over the first four climbs of the day, cemented his King Of The Mountains jersey with 13kms to go.

Only Markel Irizar was still away and with 5kms to go, he was brought back into the fold.

Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) then attacked bring 2011 Tour De France winner Cadel Evans and Kashechkin with him.

Evans (pictured above) set the pace inside the final kilometre and won ahead of Coppel and Kashechkin in a time of 4.36.21.

However, Bradley Wiggins had rode well and done enough to ensure that with yesterday's winner Luke Burbridge losing time, he had done enough to take the yellow jersey by a second from Evans.

picture https://twitter.com/TeamSky/status/209662936485072897/photo/1

Team Sky's Edvald Boason-Hagen holds the white jersey.