Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) came very close to what would have been his biggest victory ever in today's queen stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné but in the end he came up short against Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel). Despite his near-miss, the Dane was very happy to see a hard training camp on Tenerife pay off and has plenty of confidence for the Tour de France.

Just a month after the Astana team's big win in the Giro d'Italia, the team lines up in the Tour de France and while the Kazakh squad has no ambitions to win another grand tour, they still hope to battle for the top positions in the race. The men who are expected to deliver the goods are Janez Brajkovic and Jakob Fuglsang.

In this regard, the team could take plenty of confidence from today's queen stage in the Criterium du Dauphiné as Fuglsang was one of the key protagonists in the stage. Attacking close to the top of the penultimate Col de Noyer climb, he joined lone leader Samuel Sanchez and the duo hit the bottom of the final 4km ascent to the finish with a 20 second gap.

Fuglsang was clearly the strongest but Sanchez dug deep to respond to the Dane's accelerations and when it all came down to a sprint, the outcome was never in doubt. Fuglsang had to settle for 2nd but his efforts moved him from 10th to 6th on GC.

The win would have been the biggest for the Dane but despite the near-miss he was very happy to feel strength in his legs so close to his major objective.

"This was a long, hard day, but sometimes long days for me are better than short ones," he said. "Towards the end of the stage I started to feel like I had something, and so I attacked to break up the situation and get some action in the overall classification. Sanchez had no interest in the overall, and I needed to take as many seconds as possible, so it was up to me to put in as much work as possible. In the end he had more strength than me for the finish, but that is bike racing, and it happens more often thannot."

"I'm really happy that our training on Tenerife is starting to bear fruit, and I am feeling better every day. One more stage to get things done here at the Dauphine, but I am very optimistic ahead of the Tour de France."

Earlier in the stage, the Astana team had played its cards in the big 22-man escape that went clear inside the first 40km of the stage. Kevin Seeldraeyers - on the attack for the second day in a row - and U23 world champion were part of the ultimately unsuccessful move and the Belgian Seeldraeyers was out to chase the mountains jersey.

However, the leader of the mountains classification Thomas Damuseau (Argos-Shimano) was also part of the group and so Seeldraeyers ended up losing 3 points as a result of today's efforts.

"Two days in the breakaway is really hard," he said. "I had hoped to try for the polka dot jersey today, but the guy who has the jersey was in the break with me, and nobody else besides us was interested in the jersey. In a situation like that the desired outcome was not possible."

Seeldraeyers and Fuglsang still have one stage to make an impression as the final day of racing offers a summit finish in Risoul. Starting at 12.45, you can follow the action on CyclingQuotes.com/live.