Romeo, a young conqueror
June 10 th 2025 - 17:05
An exhilarating day of racing towards Charantonnay saw Ivan Romeo (Movistar) make the most of his budding talent to claim victory on day 3 of the Critérium du Dauphiné. The young Spaniard (21 years old) powered away from an impressive breakaway featuring the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Florian Lipowitz and never looked back, eventually claiming the stage but also the yellow and blue jersey. Already a winner in the area during the Tour de l’Avenir 2023, he will enjoy a special day on Wednesday. From Charmes-sur-Rhône to Saint-Péray (17.4km), it will be all about the most powerful rouleurs and the GC contenders, with a highly anticipated individual time-trial. And Romeo is an expert of the matter too - he’s the reigning UCI ITT U23 World Champion!
153 riders line up at the start in Brioude, where local icon Romain Bardet receives warm thanks and encouragement from his home town and the Critérium du Dauphiné organisation as he gets ready to retire at the end of the week.
A flurry of attacks led by Van der Poel
The leader of Picnic PostNL is one of the many attackers participating in the breakaway attempts on the côte de Cornille (km 8,9) and the côte de la Barbate (km 18).
Mathieu Van der Poel, Louis Barré and Van Gils are particularly active. But all these initiatives are nullified, while the size of the peloton halves, losing not only the leader of the overall standings Jonathan Milan but also the wearer of the polka-dot jersey, Paul Ourselin, and strong climbers like Ben Healy, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet and Magnus Sheffield.
13 riders in the lead
The intermediate sprint at La Chaise-Dieu (km 29.4) provides an opportunity for Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel to chase a handful of bonus seconds (4 for the Slovenian, 2 for the Belgian), while Louis Barré launches a new move.
After several waves of counter-attackers join him, the leading group features 13 riders, with Axel Laurance, Michael Shea Leonard (Ineos Grenadiers), Ivan Romeo (Movistar), Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ), Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Harold Tejada (XDS Astana), Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Ed Dunbar (Jayco AlUla), Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty) and Anthony Turgis (Total Energies).
GC teams react to the threat
Van der Poel is the best classified rider in the overall standings, only trailing by 2’’. And GC teams are also wary of riders such as Lipowitz (2nd of Paris-Nice 2025), Romeo (4th of the UAE Tour 2025), Dunbar (11th of last year’s La Vuelta, with 2 stage wins), Harold Tejada (8th of Paris-Nice)…
Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal Quick-Step and then Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike work together to control the day. The gap never gets higher than 2’35’’ (km 73) but it’s still up to 50’’ at the bottom of the last climb: the cat-3 Côte du Château Jaune (1.2km, 9.2%), to be summited with 19 km to go.
Romeo sets off
Lipowitz puts the hammer down at the bottom of the climb. Over the top, the German rider is accompanied by Tejada, Bernard and Leknessund. Van der Poel and Barré join them with 13 km to go. And then Romeo, Laurance, Dunbar and Rolland make it a 10-man group with 11 km to go. Meanwhile, the gap to the bunch goes back up to 1’15’’.
Attacks fly and Romeo eventually manages to open a gap with 6 km to go. The Spaniard keeps pushing all the way to the finish, where he takes a most significant victory, 14’’ ahead of Tejada, Barré and Lipowitz. He also takes the yellow and blue jersey while the peloton finish with a gap of 1’06’’. But Wednesday’s ITT is set to turn the tables upside down again.
