Fuglsang wins Tour de Romandie queen stage

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Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) took victory on the queen stage of the Tour de Romandie after attacking solo on the final descent. The Dane’s win is the second of the race for the Astana team, which took stage 1 with Omar Fraile.

Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) beat Egan Bernal (Team Sky) in the sprint for second place, some 47 seconds behind Fuglsang, to extend his lead over the Colombian in the general classification. Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) and Richie Porte (BMC Racing) followed them across the line to take fourth and fifth, respectively, with Porte giving away two seconds plus bonus seconds to Roglic and Bernal in the GC battle.

Fuglsang looked intent on securing himself his first win of the season, following an earlier attack by Costa on the final climb. The pair was eventually brought back when Bernal launched a flurry of attacks towards the top of the ascent, taking the race leader Roglic with them. Another attack by Bernal dropped all but Roglic, and the two leading contenders in the overall classification were the first to crest the Basse-Nendaz.

Costa and then Porte quickly bridged the gap at the start of the descent, but it took Fuglsang a little longer to make contact, using his notable descending skills to do the business. The Dane sat near the back of the group for much of the first part of the descent, biding his time to jump again as the road briefly headed upwards again with 15 kilometres remaining.

The road soon dipped down again and that is where Fuglsang did the most damage. He quickly extended his lead to almost 40 seconds, helped by a level of apathy from the riders behind. Costa appeared eager to bring Fuglsang back, but he was getting no help from the top three in the overall classification. Thanks to doing so much work in the chase, Costa was easily passed by Roglic and Bernal in the battle for bonus seconds, allowing Fuglsang to relieve him of his fourth place in the GC, having started the day 15th overall.

How it happened

It was another unusually sunny day at the Tour de Romandie as the riders sought out the shade while they waited for the start of the queen stage in Sion. After a tough mountain time trial, the organisers had mapped out a challenging route through the mountains for stage 4. Five climbs littered the route, with the first of them coming almost immediately after the start.

Attacks came right from the off, but LottoNL-Jumbo were cautious of letting anything go. Unsurprisingly, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) was among those that went away early on, taking Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott), Tanel Kangert (Astana) and Mathias Frank (AG2R La Mondiale) with him. Hugh Carthy (EF Education First-Drapac) then bridged the gap to make it a five-man break.

LottoNL-Jumbo remained cautious, and the five leaders had only a slim advantage on the peloton behind. Frank and Kangert were eventually distanced with Andrey Amador (Movistar) and Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain-Merida) taking their place up front. The gap was never large and never breached the three-minute mark throughout the stage.

With the peloton fully in control behind, the main battle of the day was for the king of the mountains points. Carthy took the first three climbs but De Gendt followed him in for second on each occasion, and given that he started the day with 13 points to his name, he took the lead in the competition ahead of the Brit. De Gendt took the penultimate climb as well as both intermediate sprints to cement his position at the top of both competitions with one day remaining.

The first flurries of action from the peloton came on the penultimate climb, with Daniel Martinez (EF Education First-Drapac) and Emmanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) going clear before Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) made it a trio. The gap to the leaders had fallen to just over a minute at that point and the three chasers quickly moved to within 30 seconds of the five up front. Pernsteinter soon sat up to lend his teammate a hand and they joined up with what was left of the original breakaway – De Gendt lost contact after the second intermediate sprint – soon after the start of the final climb.

The advantage over the peloton still held at a minute when the junction was made, but a surge in pace from Team Sky soon put paid to that. With three riders, and Bernal, still remaining, they took turns to burn riders out of the back. Castroviejo peeled off with just over 30 kilometres remaining, Bernal launched the first of his many attacks.

Bernal got rid of most of his GC rivals, including Porte, but could not shake Roglic, who appeared to be superglued to his rear wheel. The pair quickly brought back the remnants of the breakaway as the rest of the general classification riders scrambled to regain contact. Bernal continued to lay down punch after punch, but Roglic was more than capable of dealing with the accelerations.

The pair led over the top of the final climb, after bringing back Fuglsang and Costa, who had gone with 30 kilometres remaining. Costa, Porte and then Fuglsang made contact with the two leaders on the descent before Fuglsang made his move with 15 kilometres remaining. With the general classification riders concerned with each other rather than the Astana rider, he quickly built up a sufficient enough lead to take stage win. Roglic won the sprint for second to increase his overall lead to eight seconds ahead of Bernal.

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