Remco Evenepoel faced a dramatic setback in the Critérium du Dauphiné, losing his overall lead on stage 6 after struggling against Tadej Pogačar's attacks. Despite employing his usual steady pacing strategy, Evenepoel finished nearly two minutes behind the stage winner and wasn't able to keep up with the pace set by Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. Evenepoel insisted his crash from the previous stage had no impact on his performance, yet he appeared isolated and unable to match the top riders' intensity during the final climbs.
Having adopted his usual steady pacing strategy on the climbs rather than risk over-reacting then losing control completely, Evenepoel was nearly two minutes back on the stage winner and 50 seconds down on Vingegaard.
Evenepoel said before the start that his crash on Thursday's sprint stage had not had any effect on his climbing, and when Visma-Lease a Bike blew the race apart on the second last ascent of the day, he continued to insist he felt good.
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