Tour de Romandie: Quintana wins stage 2 in Morgins after Zakarin relegated

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Nairo Quintana (Movistar) has claimed victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie after Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) was demoted for changing his line in the sprint to the finish. Zakarin had done almost all of the post-race pleasantries but was stopped short of taking to the podium when the finish result was reversed.

Quintana had been the first to shake the pack of favourites, striking out with around 6.5 kilometres to the finish. A little over a kilometre later, Qiuntana had the defending champion for company. The pair had a slim advantage for much of their journey to the finish line but it proved to be sufficient. Quintana led them over the top of the climb of the Pas de Morgins and into the last kilometre.

Making their way through the twisty finish, it was a case of who cracked first. In the end, it was Quintana that began his sprint with 300 metres to go, taking an initial gap. Zakarin came back at the Colombian in the last 50 metres but drifted significantly to the right as they rounded the final bend, forcing Quintana to sit up. The Colombian gestured his displeasure by throwing up an arm, as Zakarin threw up both of his in celebration.

After already doing a stage-winner’s interview for television, it was announced that Zakarin had been demoted to second place for his move. Quintana was bumped into first, taking the bonus seconds that came with it to put him into the leader’s jersey, 18 seconds ahead of Zakarin in the overall standings.

“I saw the opportunity to attack and I did it and I think both Zakarin and I went forward very well,” said Quintana. “I was feeling really well all throughout the stage and I wanted to try something from a long way out and it worked out.

Of the incident with Zakarin at the finish, Quintana said: “I think he did a movement that as far as the judges are concerned was illegal and I think that movement caused him to be disqualified.”

The chasing group, which contained the current race leader and Qiuntana’s teammate Ion Izagirre, came across the line some 26 seconds back.

How it happened

After two days where the snow played havoc with the organisation, there was no such trouble for the first mountain stage. Stage 2 would bring the riders 170 kilometres from Moudon to the summit finish at Morgins. Izagirre began the day with a slender six-second gap over Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin).

The day was marked by a six-man break that included Igor Sillin (Katusha), Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Fumiyuki Beppu (Tre-Segafredo), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), and Jaco Venter (Dimension Data). The six men had a gap of 24 seconds on the peloton with 18km gone, and that had extended to a maximum of five minutes by the 72km mark.

It was then that the first of the classified climbs began on the second category Sorens, and from there their time out front was numbered. Some strong work from Team Sky brought the gap down to less than a minute as they approached the final two ascents of the day. But things began to unravel for the British squad when Chris Froome suffered a puncture just before the foot of the Les Champs climb. He picked up a wheel from a teammate Mikel Nieve but it was a slow change and Froome had a big gap to close on his own. Losing both Froome and Nieve in one fell swoop, Geraint Thomas was suddenly isolated in the front group.

Just to make Froome’s attempt at bridging back, the action began to pick up in the group of favourites. With the break almost within touching distance, Cannondale teammates Joe Dombrowski and Pierre Rolland made a bid for freedom. With 17 kilometres to go, it looked like Froome might make it back but with FDJ taking up the pace he was soon distanced again and had to resolve himself to losing any chance in the overall classification. The remainder of the general classification favourites were still tucked inside the main group at this point.

After a brief chase, Dombrowski and Rolland made the juncture to the ailing escapees. Rolland soon kicked on with Impey for company briefly but the Frenchman was brought back at the foot of the final climb with 10 kilometres to go. Katusha succeeded FDJ on the front of the peloton with a touch over seven kilometres to go but just a few hundred metres later Quintana launched his attack.

Nobody was able to follow the Colombian initially, but Zakarin bridged across to him with five kilometres remaining. A chase group containing Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Tejay van Garderen (BMC), Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) and Rolland mounted, while Thomas was distanced. The gap was only a 13 seconds for most of the chase but the pair had 26 seconds by the time they hit the line.

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