Michal Kwiatkowski has few ambitions of targeting the overall standings in the Criterium du Dauphine with the former road world champion fully expecting to back Chris Froome both here and at the Tour de France in July. On stage 1 from Aurillac to Jussac Kwiatkowski and Froome were among the first riders to bridge across to a dangerous move created by Zdenek Stybar and Julian Alaphilippe on the final climb, and although there was a re-grouping before the finish, the Ineos pair were never far from the front. `When they [Deceuninck-QuickStep] started chasing the breakaway, I don´t know, around 30 kilometres before the final that was a signal that it wasn´t going to be an easy final climb. That made us pay attention to what was going to happen on the climb but we were pretty sure they were going to try and go for it and win the stage and we were just trying to stay out of trouble,` Kwiatkowski told Cyclingnews at the finish.ADVERTISEMENT `We did a recon of today´s final yesterday so we knew it wasn´t easy to arrive at the climb to the finish. You can lose the race over there with the weather conditions and slippery roads, the bunch was pretty nervous even though it wasn´t the biggest one at the end but I think I did pretty good to stay out of trouble.` The 2014 world champion wore the yellow jersey in last year´s Dauphine after winning the opening prologue in Valence. He eventually faded in the mountains and worked for teammate and overall winner Geraint Thomas, and after a long break since his last race, the Polish rider is not expecting to challenge this time around either. `I´ve had some up and downs, today I felt good but it won´t be a surprise if I´m worse in the upcoming days because since my last race at Liege-Bastogne-Liege I haven´t raced, I´ve done a big block of training, training pretty hard and that race is always a good bit of preparation. Last year I was happy to have the yellow jersey after the prologue but this year looks different. As I said, ...
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