Tour de Romandie: Fraile wins in Delémont

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Omar Fraile took Astana’s 14th victory of the 2018 season after he beat beat Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) on stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie. Fraile went long on the run-in to the line Delémont and held off the Italian with Rui Costa taking third.

Astana have enjoyed a strong start to the season and dominated last week's Tour of the Alps. The Kazakh team looked determined to do something today and Dario Cataldo launched a brief attack near the top of the final climb with 11 kilometres remaining.

They had a second bite of the cherry after bringing back a number of late attackers in the final two kilometres with Fraile opting to kick out as they rounded the final corner. The Spaniard's surge of pace caught Colbrelli by surprise, who might have assumed he was the fastest rider remaining in the dramatically reduced peloton, and he quickly nudged in front of the Bahrain-Merida rider.

"I am so happy with this win," Fraile said. "After the Classics I did not feel great, but today everything went well and I managed to do a good stage. In general, our team was super today, we did a strong race. After all these climbs we still had many riders in the leading group and my teammates did a big job for me."

Colbrelli did his utmost to overhaul Fraile, but the frenetic finish had taken its toll and he had to settle for second place. He fared better than race leader Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb), who was distanced on the final climb, leaving Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) in perfect position to take control of the general classification. He is equal on time with Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) while Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) sits in third place at four seconds.

"In the final part of the stage I realized our group can come to the finish for a sprint, so Dario Cataldo and Jakob Fuglsang worked hard to chase all attacks and to bring me in front," Fraile explained. "I knew Sonny Colbrelli was my biggest rival today since he is a very fast guy. So, I followed his wheel and started my sprint with around 300 meters to go.

"It was a good decision, since at the last 100 meters there was a small uphill. Anyway, this victory brings me and, I think, the whole team a good motivation before the next stages. As I saw, Jakob is in a good form and we will try to help him to reach a high result here."

How it happened

After a short and technical prologue, the peloton settled into the racing proper with a 173.9-kilometre stage 1 from Fribourg to Delémont. Matthews was the rider in yellow on the start line after an impressive showing in the time trial to beat BMC Racing's Tom Bohli by a second and the day two would be a chance for the Australian to take another win.

Before the racing got underway, there was a sombre moment as the riders paused for a minute's silence for the late BMC Racing owner Andy Rihs. The Swiss businessman died last week at the age of 75 from leukaemia. His team, led by Richie Porte and Rohan Dennis at Romandie, wore black armbands in his honour.

The riders rolled out of Delémont just after 1pm local time with the flag dropping 15 minutes later, signalling the beginning of racing. A light headwind made advancement a tad harder but that didn't deter the five riders that broke clear to form the day's main escape. Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Remy Mertz (Lotto Soudal), Will Clarke (EF Education First-Drapac), Antoine Duchesne (Groupama-FDJ) and Marco Minnaard were the quintet that surged up the road and they quickly built a three-minute advantage over the bunch.

Matthews' Sunweb teammates took up their responsibilities at the front of the peloton, allowing the breakaway to amass an advantage of just over six minutes as they entered the final circuits over the second category Le Sommet with 60 kilometres to go.

Confident that their sprinter is in good form, Sunweb set a damaging pace on the ascent, putting pre-stage favourites Elia Viviani and Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors), Michael Albasini (Mitchelton-Scott) in trouble. Matthews, however, was comfortably sat at the back of his team's train. The efforts of the German-registered squad quickly cut down the advantage of the leaders and as they approached the second loop it stood at little more than three minutes.

The second running of Le Sommet sparked much more interest from other teams with UAE Team Emirates and LottoNL-Jumbo helping to push the pace on the front and take another minute from the five men out front. After a tough day out, Mertz was the first of the escapees to lose touch and others were quick to follow with Clarke and Duchesne taking the trap door exit in quick succession, leaving Gougeard and Minnaard the last men standing.

With Mertz no longer up front, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) jumped off the front with Mitchelton-Scott rider Lucas Hamilton and Pavel Sivakov (Team Sky). They were brought back into the fold but pace quickly whittled away the peloton from the other end. Having looked comfortable on the first time up Le Sommet, Matthews found himself out the back as Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) set the pace for Roglic.

As the gap was reduced to just 10 seconds with 11 kilometres to go, Astana sought to put the cat among the pigeons with a short-lived attack. No sooner had it been brought back together, Dan Martin launched a move up the left-hand side of the road and quickly bridged across to the leaders just over the top of the climb. The speed of the descent meant that Martin was unable to stay away long and several riders streamed past him on the long downhill run.

As the rest were swallowed up Gougeard escaped the clutches of the chasing peloton but with the road flattening out, he had just nine seconds on a determined pack behind. The Frenchman had been out all day and, in the end, he didn't have the energy to go all the way to the line. Meanwhile, the fast descent allowed a number of dropped riders to regain contact with the bunch, which now consisted of around 50 riders.

A flurry of attacks followed but the win would come down to a reduced bunch sprint to the line. Colbrelli led the pack towards the final corner but Fraile put in an acceleration to move past the Italian. It was a slim advantage but it proved enough for Fraile to claim his second win of the season.

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