Albasini wins Tour de Romandie stage to Champéry

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Michael Albasini (Orica-Scott) claimed a cold, soggy stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie to Champéry on Wednesday, out-sprinting Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) and Jesús Herrada (Movistar) in a chaotic push to the line. 

Chris Froome (Sky) showed his mettle and his intentions for the GC by mixing it up in the sprint, coming fifth behind Natnael Berhane (Dimension Data).

The category 1 ascent to the line failed to dislodge prologue winner Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo), who finished in the front group to keep his overall race lead. Michael Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors) moved into second overall at eight seconds, with Herrada netting enough in time bonuses to take third on the same time.

Primoz Roglic (LottoNl-Jumbo) is the best of the overall contenders at nine seconds

How it happened

A cold rain kept the riders bundled beneath winter jackets on stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie from Aigle, with 172.1km of misery ahead of the peloton en route to Champéry. With five categorised climbs on tap, the Trek-Segafredo team took a back seat rather than work too hard to defend the jersey of race leader Fabio Felline.

When Sander Armée (Lotto Soudal) and Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) attacked out of the gates and were joined by Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Matvey Mamykin (Katusha-Alpecin), Oliveiro Troia (UAE Team Emirates) and Mekseb Debesay (Dimension Data), the peloton let them form the day's breakaway.

While the six out front rode hard to stay warm, the peloton huddled together against the elements, letting the breakaway get a lead of seven minutes by the first climb, though Troia was distanced on the category 3 Chamoson. Armee claimed the mountain points on this and the next category 3 to Ollon in an attempt to repeat his mountains classification win from the previous year in Romandie.

The next ascent to Vex – an 8.9km long category 1 climb – spelled the end of Burghardt's time out front. Debesay took the maximum points over Armée, as the breakaway maintained its seven minute lead.

With 50 kilometres to go, LottoNL-Jumbo finally kicked into gear to begin to chip away at the quartet's lead, knocking two minutes off it over the course of the next 10 kilometres.

That precipitous drop continued ahead of the penultimate climb, the category 3 La Rasse that came with 28.7 kilometres remaining, which the leaders reached with 3:05 on the bunch, now with Team Sky and BMC joining the Dutch squad in pursuit.

Just ahead of the crest, Armée attacked the breakaway to take maximum mountain points as the peloton pulled within two minutes of them, but on the descent his three companions rejoined him and forged on to the final category 1 ascent to Champéry. Behind, Bob Jungels suffered a front puncture and stopped to change wheels with a teammate.

The rain began falling harder as the leaders made their way through the valley, and it renewed their interest in hard riding – the quartet gained 20 seconds as the BMC team took control of the pacemaking in the pack.

However, the chasers had the results of their earlier test, and knew they could catch the leaders with ease. They halved the breakaway's advantage by the time they reached the final climb, a stair-step affair over the course of the final 15 kilometres with a 1.5km drop to the line.

Debesay was the first to attack, putting first Mamykin and then Minnard into trouble – although the latter was able to fight his way back after the initial acceleration, he soon lost contact for good. But Mamykin had a sudden revival and rejoined Armée and Debesay to make it three again with 11.5 kilometres to go.

Armee attacked again with 10 kilometres to go after Mamykin took a weak pull, and distanced the Katusha-Alpecin rider for good. But their effort was for nought as the BMC-led bunch closed in to just one large switchback behind.

The yellow jersey holder Felline finally showed himself at the front with seven kilometres to go as the duo ahead were about to be caught. Robert Gesink (LottoNl-Jumbo) put the nail in the coffin of the breakaway, and was followed on a slight attack by Tsgabu Grmay, Damien Howson, Damien Gaudu and Pierre Latour, but that move was quickly neutralised by David De La Cruz (Quick-Step).

Roman Kreuziger (Orica-Scott) countered, forcing Gesink to continue his effort behind to narrow the gap. The Czech champion dangled just ahead, blowing Gesink up. Howson saw the struggles in the bunch and attacked to go across to his teammate sparking a reaction from Tejay van Garderen (BMC). He and Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) joined Howson, along with a handful of others and reeled Kreuziger in, but the peloton was hot on their heels, catching them just after the three-kilometres-to-go banner.

Roglic kept the pressure on, jumping with the top of the climb 500 metres away, but was marked by Simon Spilak (Katusha) and Richie Porte (BMC).

The peloton was still unusually large and Felline still present as they crested the climb and rode into the clouds toward the finish in Champéry. The run-in was chaotic, with rain, spray and fog obscuring the riders as they sprinted to the finish, but it was Albasini who flashed through the line, arms raised, for the stage win.

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