Tour de Romandie: Gaudu claims victory on stage 3

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David Gaudu gave Groupama-FDJ its second consecutive stage victory at the Tour de Romandie. A day after Stefan Küng soloed to the stage 2 win, Gaudu showed off his rapidly improving climbing talents by beating Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) on the steep finish to Chateau de Romont. 

Michael Woods (EF Education First) was fourth after tangling with Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) but Gaudu stole the limelight, struggling to understand how he had beaten some of the best Grand Tour riders in the peloton.

The 22-year-old Breton timed his acceleration perfectly, avoiding a late crash and poor positioning before dancing on the pedals to won by several bike lengths as his bigger-name rivals could only chase him and fight for the remaining time bonuses.

Gaudu won the 2016 Tour de L'Avenir, indicating his stage race talents. He took his first professional victory at the Tour de l'Ain in 2017 but this is his first WorldTour victory. He made his Tour de France debut in 2018, finishing 34th overall and fourth in the best young rider classification.

"I felt really good all day," Gaudu explained.

"In the final, the guys did a great job to position me over the last couple of climbs. When we brought Thomas De Gendt back and I felt I still had some power in the legs. At the foot of the final climb I was up in the front positions and as we went up I was feeling pretty strong.

"Coming out of the final bend I knew I had to go for it but I didn't overly believe I could do it. I said to myself: 'all the way to the line,' but thought that it wasn't possible, that'd I'd finish second, but in the end, it smiled on me."

Thanks to a ten-second time bonus, Gaudu is now second overall, six seconds behind Roglic, with Costa third overall at eight seconds. The Tour de Romandie will be decided over the weekend with the mountain stage on Saturday and then a 16.8km time trial around Geneve on Sunday. Gaudu is not great in time trials but was upbeat about a day in the mountains.

"Tomorrow is going to be hard and the weather won't be great either. The climb is pretty good and so we'll see what happens. I think I've got a couple of bullets left to fire. We'll see."

How it unfolded

The 160km stage covered three different out and back loops from Romont, with a shark's tooth profile making for a day of suffering before the kick up to the finish.

Sprinter Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) was one of the first to attack but then surprisingly quit the race. The early break formed after 25km with Kenny Elissonde (Team Ineos), Lennard Kamna (Team Sunweb), Michael Storer (Team Sunweb), Michael Albasini (Mitchelton-Scott), Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Merida), Andrey Amador (Movistar) and Roland Thalmann (Switzerland) soon gaining a minute. The break shuffled, with Amador dropping back and Nikita Stalnov (Astana) came across but Jumbo-Visma rode to protect Roglic's yellow jersey and the gap never grew past 1:40.

Behind the sprinters and their teammates slipped off the back on the climbs but chased to close the gap as they enjoyed some final climbing training for the Giro d'Italia.

With 35km to go and three nasty climbs remaining, the EF Education First took over the pace setting from Jumbo-Visma, keen to shake out the peloton and set up Woods for the steep finish. Hugh Carthy caused some damage on a climb, and then Tanel Kangert took over before Joe Dombrowski also hit the front. Their efforts brought the break to heel with 17km to go and spat out a number of sprinters.

EF Education First stayed in control until 6.5km to go when Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) tried a solo attack. He is always a threat but was soon chased down as all the overall contenders fought for position near the front. They knew it was vital to be in the top ten if they were fighting for the stage victory and the important time bonuses.

Thomas was dragged up front with a kilometre to go and Costa was well placed. However others were fighting for position and a touch of wheels in a turn sparked a crash, with Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo) taking down Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida). Their chances were over.

In sight of the line, Thomas also almost rode into Woods and lost his chance. However, Gaudu was up front and away from the fighting. He saw the finish approach, danced on the pedals, and soon opened a gap on his rivals, winning with his arms open and huge smile on his face.

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