Wout Poels took an emotional win at the rain-soaked Criterium du Dauphine as the race finally headed into the high mountains, waving his arms in joy and satisfaction before dedicating his victory to Team Ineos and Chris Froome, who crashed dramatically as he and Poels studied the time trial stage on Wednesday. Poels, like at everyone in the sport, had been shocked by the severity of Froome’s crash and the multiple fractures that needed long hours of surgery. Froome will miss the Tour de France but Poels’ fight back and stage victory showed that Team Ineos have no intentions of abdicating their Grand Tour crown. "It’s really nice for the team and it’s a gift for Chris [Froome] also," Poels said. "I felt pretty strong all day. The team did an amazing job. 500 metres before the line, I thought it would be difficult to catch the two guys away but in the last corner I came and just round over them. It’s very nice to win here.”ADVERTISEMENT Poels came from behind in the final kilometre of the 133km stage to catch to Les Sept Laux-Pipay and pass Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), who had gone away earlier in the 19km Montée de Pipay climb to the finish. Poels surged across the gap and cut under the two inside the final five hundred metres. It was his first victory of 2019. Fuglsang and Buchmann finished one second behind Poels, with Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) in a select GC chase group at ten seconds. Fuglsang was disappointed to miss out on the stage victory but the time bonus for second place helped him take the leader’s yellow jersey from Yates with only Sunday’s final mountain stage to Champery left to race. Fuglsang now leads Yates by eight seconds, with Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) third overall at 20 seconds after a strong performance by the American. Buchman is fourth overall at 21 seconds, with Poels moving up to fifth at 28 seconds. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) both lost contact in the finale, losing 46 seconds and slipping out of the top ten overall. Riders in the storm
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