Greig Leach

Even with Haimar Zubeldia (Trek-Segafredo) trying to calm things down a bit, the lead up to the sprint got rather dodgie. Sprinters need to be fearless and agressive, but today there were quite a few elbows flying and helmets butting. It is frequently said that so-n-so sprinter was fighting for such-n-such rider's wheel, today short of actually throwing punches, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) were fighting it out for the Katusha lead out train. Bouhanni used his experience as an amateur boxer and his legs to get through to claim the first stage of the 2016 Criterium du Dauphine. Coming up short behind the diminutive Frenchman were Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal), Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon), Jonas Van Genechten (IAM Cycling) and Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge). Despite the victories, the over all classification's top ten remained unchanged from the results of the Prologue Individual Time Trial.