Tour de Romandie: Marc Soler solos to victory on stage 3

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Marc Soler (Movistar) won stage 3 of the Tour de Romandie with an attack on the day's final climb, gaining enough time to become the new overall leader of the race.

The incumbent leader, Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers), suffered a crash unseen by television cameras sometime near the end, and finished in a group behind the peloton, conceding the yellow jersey to Soler.

"It was a very hard stage, especially with the rain and cold all during the stage. There were a lot of attacks on the last climb," Soler said. "I kept mine for the key moment and it went well.

"It gives me confidence and morale for what’s coming up at the Giro. Now we’ll try to defend yellow and see how far we can go. It’s not a lot of time considering the Ineos riders are so strong in the time trial but we’ll give it our maximum tomorrow."

Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) won the sprint for second ahead of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) from a peloton that had been reduced to no more than 30 riders after a tough day of hills and miserable weather.

Soler launched his move on the final ascent of Les Granges, around 10km from the finish, after the likes of Michael Woods (Israel-StartUp Nation), Ion Izagirre (Astana-Premier Tech) and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) had tried and failed to go clear.

Beginning the day 23rd on GC at 27 seconds, Soler was a threat on GC, but despite the best efforts of the chasing GC teams he managed to hang on to win by 22 seconds. Added to the bonus seconds earned for winning the stage, he now holds an advantage of 14 seconds ahead of Geraint Thomas, Richie Porte (both Ineos Grenadiers) and Sonny Colbrelli in second, third and fourth respectively.

Dennis slips out of the top ten after his crash, but could still have an important job to do in service of Thomas and Porte on tomorrow's queen stage, provided he feels no ill-effects from his injury.

Before the final climb, it looked as though the two remaining riders from the day's seven-man break, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Kobe Goossens (Lotto-Soudal), had a chance of surviving. But Küng crashed on a descent leading to the final climb, hitting the ground hard and sliding across the slippery road surfaces made wet from a day of rainfall. Thankfully he was able to remount, but his chances of winning the stage were over.

Goossens continued to ride ahead alone but was brought back on the final climb, where the flurry of attacks ending with Soler's race-winning move were made.

How it unfolded

Patrick Bevin (Israel-StartUp Nation), who was second overall, was the highest-profile of a number of non-starters, which was a shame as the Kiwi would have been one of the favourites for what looked likely to be another reduced bunch sprint.

Although two climbs were featured in the 35km circuit around Estavayer that was tackled three times in the finale, neither of them was especially hard, giving the sprinters a good chance of surviving and controlling the race.

Having threatened to do so throughout the race, the heavens at last opened for what was a wet third stage of the Tour de Romandie.

The miserable conditions didn't discourage riders from trying to get into the break, however, and the opening kilometres were fast as the fight to do so ensued.

Seven managed to go clear on the first climb of the day, including Swiss time trial stars Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo). With them were Kobe Goossens (Lotto-Soudal), Sander Armée (Qhubeka Assos), Matthias Reutimann (Swiss Cycling), Charles Quarterman (Trek-Segafredo) and Johan Jacobs (Movistar).

Küng and Goossens were the highest on GC at 1-19 from Rohan Dennis' time, meaning Ineos Grenadiers once again had to be careful not to let them gain too much of an advantage.

Having gained a maximum advantage of over four minutes, it was brought back to around two minutes and remained around that distance.

Goossens gained maximum points over the first ascents of both the climbs and also gained the bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint, which made him the virtual leader just ahead of Küng.

Aware that the Filippo Ganna-led peloton had upped the tempo, the breakaway pushed on after the peloton had looped round to take on the climbs for the second time, and Goossens, Küng, Bissegger and Jacobs dropped the other three.

Ineos slowed the pace down on the climbs themselves, allowing the break's advantage to grow up towards 2:30, and prompting Bora-Hansgrohe to take control at the front instead, with a potential Peter Sagan stage win in mind.

At the penultimate crossing of the finish line to mark the beginning of the last lap, the gap between the leading quartet and the peloton (where Sonny Colbrelli's Bahrain-Victorious team had also offered assistance) was at 2:20.

With Bora-Hansgrohe and Bahrain-Victorious both committed to bringing the break back, the gap finally started to rapidly fall again and had been reduced to about half a minute by the start of the penultimate climb of the day.

Once the break reached the climb, Küng upped the pace and dropped Bissegger and Jacobs, and reached the top with just Goossens for company.

But Küng's chances of making it to the finish were over in a flash, however, when he fell on a right-hand turn on the following descent. It was a dramatic crash, and Küng slid several yards over the wet slippery surface, but thankfully he was OK to continue.

That left Goossens out front alone, and he still held an advantage of 40 seconds by the time he hit the final climb of the day.

On the climb, there was some activity from the GC men, as the likes of Michael Woods (Israel-StartUp Nation) and Ion Izagirre (Astana-Premier Tech), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) and Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-QuickStep) all put in speculative attacks.

Ineos Grenadiers were surprisingly absent at the front of the peloton during this flurry of activity, and it soon transpired that the yellow jersey Rohan Dennis had crashed unseen by the cameras, tearing his shorts and suffering a gash to his right thigh.

These attacks were enough to bring back Goossens, who was caught as the top of the climb approached.

Marc Soler (Movistar) attacked after the catch was made, and made it to the top with a gap of a few seconds ahead of a chasing Ion Izagirre (Asana-Premier Tech), who was a further few seconds ahead of a thinned-out peloton.

With 5km to go Soler was looking very strong and held a gap of 30 seconds over the peloton, and 22 seconds over Izagirre, who was about to be swallowed up.

Soler continued to hold his pace all the way to the finish and crossed the line with a shushing finger-to-his-lips gesture by way of celebration.

He'll now aim to retain the yellow jersey over the final weekend of racing, starting with tomorrow's queen stage in the mountains, although it remains to be seen whether that stage will go ahead completely as planned in light of the recent weather conditions.