Tour de Romandie: Roglic wins stage 1

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After missing out by less than a second in Tuesday’s prologue, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) claimed victory and the overall lead on the opening road stage of the Tour de Romandie on Wednesday.

The defending champion won a sprint from a select group of around 20 riders after the peloton had been reduced over the five categorised climbs – and a few uncategorised ones – on the 168.4km route from Neuchatel to La Chaux-de-Fonds.

David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) sprinted to second place after an aggressive display in the final 15 kilometres, while Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) took the final spot on the podium. Roglic takes the leader’s jersey from his compatriot Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Merida), who won the prologue but was dropped on the final climb of the Col de la Tourne with just over 25km to go.

In the overall standings, Roglic leads Costa by 10 seconds, with Gaudu third at 12 seconds and Thomas fourth at 13 seconds.

“It was a really hard day for me and it wasn’t easy with a lot of climbs but, in the end, I managed to get the stage from a small group,” Roglic said. “It was nice to win a sprint because I’ve lost quite a lot of times in sprints so it’s a nice feeling now I’ve finally won.”

In the end, a select group of general classification contenders emerged to contest the finish, but the parcours, with five second-category climbs, left the door ajar to the breakaway hopefuls and the more versatile sprinters.

After an intense start and battle to make the break, 13 riders went clear ahead of the first climb after 25km. In there were: Chad Haga (Team Sunweb), Diego Rosa (Team Ineos), Eros Capecchi (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Jay Robert Thomson (Dimension Data), William Bonnet (Groupama-FDJ), Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe), Simon Pellaud (Switzerland), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Jonas Vingegaard (Team Jumbo-Visma), Lukasz Owsian (CCC Team), Patrick Schelling (Switzerland), Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Soudal) and Manuele Mori (UAE Team Emirates).

Pellaud led the way over three of the climbs to take the mountains jersey, and was one of the last men standing as the ascents reduced the breakaway group before he, Gougeard, and Owsian were caught by the peloton on the final climb of the Col de la Tourne.

As for the sprinters, Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was struggling on the first climb and was dropped on the third, the Haut-de-la-Côte, after 90 kilometres, while Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and the rest suffered the same fate when the race ignited on the Tourne. The only true fast finisher left in contention at the top of the final climb was Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida), though the Italian was himself dispatched when Thomas attacked on a short uncategorised climb with 12km to go.

At that point, Emmanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was alone out front, having attacked on the false flat just after the summit of the Tourne. The German held the reduced peloton – led almost exclusively by Hugh Carthy (EF Education First) – at 30 seconds until Thomas accelerated, bringing Gaudu and Michael Woods (EF Education First) across with him. They linked up with Buchmann with 6km to go, on another uncategorised uphill drag, though by that point the vastly reduced main group, led by Roglic’s teammate Steven Kruijswijk, was almost upon them.

Attack and counter-attack came and went from that group of 20 on the run-in, with Gaudu trying his luck again, and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) making repeated efforts. When the Russian went with 1.8km to go, Thomas responded, flying past him under the flamme rouge, though he was shut down by Carlos Betancur (Movistar) before the rest of the group came rushing through for the sprint. Damien Howson (Mitchelton-Scott) led the way but Roglic soon came around to win by a clear margin.

The Slovenian has foregone the defending champion’s customary number 1 dossard, arguing he was unsure of his form after a lengthy spell away from racing, but this was further proof that he is a true contender for the title this week, and indeed for the Giro d’Italia, which begins in 10 days.

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