Tour de Romandie: Froome dominates the final time trial

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Chris Froome (Team Sky) secured overall victory at the Tour de Romandie with a dominant performance in the final stage time trial around Neuchatel. The Briton started the 18.5km hilly time trial one second behind Simon Spilak (Katusha) but blasted up the mid-stage climb in his tucked aero time trial position and then dived to the finish to win the stage and take overall victory.

Froome set a time of 24:50 to beat world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) by less than a second. Kiwi Jesse Sergent (Trek Factory Racing) was third at eight seconds. Spilak fought hard and held onto to second place overall and finished the race 28 seconds back. After a close fight for the final spot on the podium, world road race champion Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) climbed onto the podium with Froome and Spilak. Vincenzo  Nibali (Astana) headed home defeat by his Tour de France rival, finishing the race fifth overall.

It was Froome's second consecutive victory at the Tour de Romandie, the third consecutive victory for Team Sky after Bradley Wiggins won in 2012 and the team's 150th victory.

Froome was happy after his performance in the time trial and after securing overall victory. He proved to his Tour de France rivals that he is back on track for July.

"I'm really happy to have this result. Spilak is not a time trial specialist like Tony Martin and I'm happy to have beaten him today. It was a close race. I didn’t feel confident, it was flat out and so it wasn't easy," Froome said after pulling on the winner's yellow jersey.

"This year was a different race; there were no hilltop finishes, so it made the race different. The time trial was extremely hard; on a very tough circuit but I think the climb was good for me. But with one second to gain on Simon Spilak it was really difficult. He was strong in the mountains the other day and I wasn't sure how it would go. I'm just so happy to be back in the yellow jersey. It's a great feeling."

Froome will now take a break from training but continue to train for the Tour de France after a difficult spring.

"This has been difficult period for me, I had a chest infection and problems with my back, it's not been easy but I've worked really hard to get back to this level. I'm really happy and now I just hope I can build on this to the Tour de France," he said.

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