Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) denied Tour de Romandie leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) a third stage victory, powering to a reduced bunch sprint win in Orbe.
The prologue winner started winding up his sprint early and was passed by the punchier Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). However, once Godon got on top of his gear, he powered past the Kiwi to grab the victory.
Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quickstep) sprinted in for third place ahead of Pogačar. The world champion continues to lead the Tour de Romandie before the mountainous final two stages by 17 seconds over Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), with Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) in third at 26 seconds.
"It was extremely difficult right from the start today," Godon said.
"And of course, there was a lot of pressure when it came to the climbs here - it was really tough. But I just had to wait and make sure that nothing happened. Andrew August was brilliant to sacrifice himself to get me over that last climb. And then Laurens De Plus did an amazing turn out there to take the pressure off. And I managed to recover.
"I'm absolutely delighted for this kind of victory in this kind of quality field. I absolutely emptied myself at the finish."
How it unfolded
The 176.6 kilometre route around Orbe consisted of several circuits, with the last 65 kilometres including the category 2 ascent of the Col du Mollendruz.
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The first climb came just 7.5km into the stage, leading to numerous attacks in the opening kilometres.
Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) was the most active, going with several moves and winning the mountain prime at Suchi. Eventually, the German made the day's breakaway along with Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek), Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious), Lorenzo Germani, Josh Kench and Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ United) and Steff Cras (Soudal-Quickstep).
With Steinhauser the highest-placed rider at 2:20 from Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates-XRG made sure to limit the escapees' advantage to around the two minute mark.
The day's breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
With 67km to go, everyone in the breakaway except Cras and Caruso came down on a roundabout. It was a low-speed crash and the three Groupama riders, Oomen and Steinhauser were up quickly and chasing back, but Rochas took the longest to get back on his bike and faced a long fight through the team cars.
The incident slashed into the breakaway's advantage, and they came across the finish line for the final lap with 1:50 on the peloton, but after Rochas rejoined, the gap was soon back out to 2:20.
However, the chase cost the Frenchman and when the breakaway was on the day's biggest climb, the Col du Mollendruz, Rochas was dropped with 42km to go. Germani was next to drop off three kilometres later, and as Caruso ramped up the pace, only Cras could hold his wheel.
Steinhauser managed to join up with Cras after he lost contact with the Italian as the climb really began to bite, but behind, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's efforts to put the screws to Pogačar halved the escapees' lead.
Caruso crested the Col du Mollendruz with 25 seconds on Steinhauser and Cras and one minute ahead of the Pogačar group and 32km to race. On the long, fast descent, the chasing duo closed in on Caruso with 17km to go. The only problem was that the chasing group was making inroads too, and was just 30 seconds behind.
Approaching the 5km to go banner, the peloton had the lead trio in sight and Lidl-Trek and Ineos took turns trying to shut down a 13-second gap. Despite their best efforts, the three couldn't hold on and were back in the fold with 2.5km to go.
While Movistar tried to pre-empt the sprint, Ineos had it under control and delivered Godon to another stage victory.
The sprint to the line (Image credit: Getty Images)
Laura Weislo is a Cyclingnews veteran of 20 years. Having joined in 2006, Laura extensively covered the Operacion Puerto doping scandal, the years-long conflict between the UCI and the Tour de France organisers ASO over the creation of the WorldTour, and the downfall of Lance Armstrong and his lifetime ban for doping. As Managing Editor, Laura coordinates coverage for North American events and global news.
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