Sagan superior in Fleurier

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Peter Sagan, the first year pro and revelation of Paris-Nice, claimed his third season win in a close sprint on the first full stage of the Tour de Romandie in Fleurier, Switzerland.

The Slovak sensation also claimed the overall lead of the Tour through the victory. He was just 0.92 seconds behind HTC-Columbia's Marco Pinotti at the start of the day, and clad in the green points jersey he stripped the Italian of the yellow leader's shirt.

"It's great to win. I didn’t think I could do it today. The three climbs were very hard and I didn’t go too well at first. Fortunately I went better on final climb and I knew I was one second from the yellow jersey. My team told me that I could win and take the jersey and they helped me do it. It's great."

Sagan, while pleased to be in the race lead, pledged his loyalty to Liquigas team leader Roman Kreuziger, who won last year's Tour.

"Our team leader is Roman Kreuziger and I don’t know what I can do. I'm not a good climber like he is. We'll see. There are three hard stages and a time trial to come."

The HTC-Columbia team could have used its star sprinter Mark Cavendish to prevent the Liquigas rider from gaining the lead, but the Manxman was dropped on a category 2 climb with 45km to go.

Three musketeers

The first full stage of the Tour de Romandie was a hilly route from the prologue town of Porrentruy to Fleurier, 175.6km away. There were only 156 riders on the start line due to the abandons of Arkaitz Duran Daroca (Footon-Servetto) and prologue crash victims Chris Froome (Sky) and Joaquin Novoa (Cervelo TestTeam).

More summer-like weather greeted the riders for their journey, and the pleasant conditions inspired the first attackers to launch just 11km into the day. A trio of young riders, all under 24 years of age, quickly built up a lead over the peloton, which seemed content to enjoy the sunshine with a more leisurely pace.

The hard work went to Chad Beyer (BMC) and Andrey Zeits (Astana), both 23 and Thibaut Pinot, 19, a first year professional with Francaise des Jeux.

The trio worked well together, trading mountain and sprint bonuses along the way and building a maximum advantage of more than nine minutes over the HTC-Columbia-led peloton.

Pinot took the first mountain points over Zeits and Beyer, while behind in the peloton his teammates Jeremy Roy and Sandy Casar showed the team was interested in claiming the overall climber's competition by sweeping up the remaining points at the top.

Zeits claimed the first sprint bonus of the day, while Pinot continued his raid on the climbs on the second mountain sprint. Again, Roy and Casar claimed the rest of the bonus points.

Beyer was given his chance to line his pockets at the second sprint bonus, which he took over Zeits, but looming ahead was the climb that would end the American's time in the move.

With 45km to go, the leaders began the ascent of the côte aux Fées. Pinot chose the climb as a launching pad for a solo move, and he succeeded in dispatching first Beyer and then Zeits.

Behind in the peloton, the gap was plummeting from four minutes at the base of the category 2 climb to just over one minute at the top. Fabio Felline (Footon-Servetto) launched an attack at the base, but was not able to open a big gap.

Charly Wegelius (Omega Pharma-Lotto) was the next to go, and while his move survived for nearly 10km, he was neither able to close the gap to Pinot or hold off the chase of the peloton, now assisted by Liquigas-Doimo.

The climb may have been the undoing of the breakaway, but it was also the nail in the coffin for HTC-Columbia's sprinter Mark Cavendish, who lost contact with the bunch along with a handful of other sprinters on the mountain.

As Pinot struggled to hold his lead of less than one minute, Wegelius' teammate Jan Bakelants had a go with 18km remaining. The move only inspired the chase, whittling down Pinot's lead to a handful of seconds. The pair joined forces, but the Frenchman had nothing to give after at the pointy end of the race and he quickly gave up, while Bakelants finally succumbed 13 kilometers later after never gaining much more than 15 seconds..

Lampre and Liquigas were now in charge of the pace-setting, working together to keep Cavendish from rejoining, while HTC-Columbia focused on protecting the jersey of Marco Pinotti.

As Bakelants was caught with 4km to go, BMC, Rabobank and Astana began to show themselves at the front for their sprinters, while HTC-Columbia continued to take a back seat to the action.

Garmin-Transitions took the reins with 2km to go with Travis Meyer working for his sprinter Robbie Hunter, while Milram was intent to deliver Gerald Ciolek to his first season win.

Inside the final kilometre, HTC-Columbia finally played its hand with a solo attack, but the sprinters wanted to have a chance, and in the narrow rush to the line it was Liquigas' young star Peter Sagan who claimed the win.