Zakarin wins Tour de Romandie

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Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) overcame a mechanical problem to win the overall classification of the Tour de Romandie, while Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) claimed victory on the final time trial on Sunday. Zakarin was forced to change bikes during his time trial effort but still only lost 13 seconds to Martin to hold onto his race lead. Simon Spilak made it a Katusha one-two as he managed to jump from fourth to second in the overall standings, with an impressive ride to second on the stage.

"I am really happy about this victory," Martin said. "This is my 2nd win of the season. The first was in Algarve, so I had to wait a long time for my next one. It's a really nice feeling. Today the time trial was completely in the rain, so it was a little bit of a disadvantage, especially on the climb with the cobblestones and a few tricky corners on the downhill. But I actually didn't mind it.

"I think this is a nice victory for me, but also for the team. At Tour de Romandie we were always in the actions, with a few good placements but no victories. So this win is important for the morale of all of us at the end of this race. Rigo [Uran] also did really well. He finished 5th GC and is building up his condition for the Giro d'Italia. Considering everything we are all quite happy about Tour de Romandie."

Zakarin is in his first year at the WorldTour level, after graduating from RusVelo to Katusha last winter. The former Russian national time trial champion had a delayed start to his career following a two-year ban for anabolic steroid use. He made a brief appearance as a stagiaire for Katusha before spending two years at the Pro Continental level. He’s had a good start to his debut WorldTour season with 10th at the Tour de San Luis and ninth at the Vuelta al País Vasco, with Romandie his first overall victory at this level.

"Honestly I did not expect I could win this race. Yes, I wanted to be in form here and wanted to fight for the top 5. During the race I did my best, especially yesterday and today in the time trial. I worked to get the best possible result but of course this is a big surprise for me to win here. I have not analyzed the results of today’s TT and I need to do that to understand what happened. All I know, I did full gas, 100%, and now I am really happy. I want to thank my team – all the guys, the management, sports directors and staff for their support and great help. My victory is a victory of the whole team," Zakarin said.

Rohan Dennis (BMC) was the first rider to dip under the 24-minute mark with his time of 23:39. The Australian didn’t have long to wait for his post-race shower though, with Martin bumping him off the hotseat around five minutes later with his time of 23:17, enough to seal the stage win.

It is Martin’s second victory of the season, after winning the time trial at the Volta ao Algarve, and ends a frustrating run of results throughout the spring. It would be a long wait for Martin before he would see anyone even come close to his time.

As race leader Zakarin would be the last of the GC hopefuls to roll down the start ramp. He held a slim six-second advantage over Thibaut Pinot going into the final day and with 20 seconds separating the top four, everything was still to play for going into the final stage. Wet roads added to the lumpy made for a difficult day and big time gaps were forming among the main general classification contenders.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) was one of the biggest losers of the day, giving away a minute to Martin and slipping down to eighth in the overall classification. Chris Froome began the day as a favourite to take his third straight general classification victory at the Tour de Romandie but the Team Sky rider appeared to struggle in the rain. Froome eventually came home 34 seconds down on Martin, enough to maintain his podium position but nothing more than that.

Zakarin’s teammate Spilak has twice finished second overall at the race and began the day in fourth place. He put in a commanding performance, losing only 11 seconds to Martin, and leap-frogging Froom and Thibaut Pinot - who slipped to fourth - into his third consecutive runner-up spot.

Spilak must have thought that he’d finally cracked it and taken the race victory when he saw Zakarin climb off his bike in search of a replacement. However, the Russian was able to limit his losses and only gave away a single second to his teammate on the line. 

"The bike change was my mistake. At the top of the climb I had to slow my pace a little bit and not push so hard on the pedals to change the gear. But I pushed it too hard and the chain got stuck. But the mechanics did a perfect job and changed my bike very fast," Zakarin said.

"There was no panic when we had to change bikes. Everything was organized. We had the spare bike and we changed it very quickly probably in no more than 15-seconds. We already knew that Ilnur was good at the time trial but you put somebody in a yellow jersey and it changes him. For some it makes them worse but for others it makes them better. He switched on for the better," added team director Dmitry Konyshev.

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