Tour de Romandie: Woods wins stage 4 and takes overall lead as Geraint Thomas crashes at summit finish

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Michael Woods claimed victory on a dramatic queen stage of the Tour de Romandie, as Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) crashes in the final 50 metres of the final climb to squander the overall lead.

The Ineos rider lost control of his bike as the pair sprinted for the line at Thyon 2000, his hand slipping from his handlebar as he rose from the saddle.

As he crumpled to the floor, Woods celebrated and Ben O’Connor nipped past for second place, with Thomas picking himself up to finish third at 21 seconds.

With Marc Soler (Movistar) dropped and finishing ninth at 53 seconds, Thomas had appeared set to inherit the leader’s yellow jersey but the crash leaves him second overall at 11 seconds.

He’ll be expected to recoup that time in Sunday’s final time trial but it was a sour note to end what had been a fine display on the wet and foggy 20km final climb.

Thomas’ bizarre crash was the final twist in a tumultuous day of racing in yet more miserable conditions. The stage had already been moved forward two hours to avoid the forecasted snow, and the descent from the penultimate climb of Suen – itself a category-1 ascent – was neutralized mid-race due to the thick fog and wet conditions.

There was potential controversy as the seven-man breakaway were led down at a faster rate and gained more than a minute before the race was opened up again. Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo), who started the day just 59 seconds down, saw hopes of the stage win and an unlikely yellow jersey but his brave effort ended when his legs emptied just under 5km from the summit of the final climb.

In the end, the neutralization made no difference to the overall complexion of the race, as Woods attacked from the thinning GC group and flew clear. Thomas initially stayed with Soler and his teammate Richie Porte – third overall – but attacked with just over 3km to go and made his way past earlier attackers Lucas Hamilton (BikeExchange), Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-QuickStep), and O’Connor on his way over to Woods.

Thomas then drove the pace for the final two kilometres, looking to maximize his GC gains, as Woods managed to hold the wheel. Going into the final 200 metres, Woods started to open for the stage win but Thomas managed to move back alongside. Woods kicked again, at which point Thomas rose from the saddle, but his right hand suddenly slipped from the hoods, his front wheel turned and slipped on the wet surface, and he crumpled to the floor.Woods punched the air as O’Connor came past before a grimacing Thomas dragged himself to the line.

Woods now leads the Tour de Romandie by 11 seconds from Thomas, with O’Connor third at 21 seconds.  Soler slips to fourth at 33 seconds, with Porte rounding out the top five at 36 seconds.

How it unfolded

The 161km stage started out with an early category-3 climb at Chamoson, where Joel Suter (Swiss Cycling) extended his lead in the mountains classification on the climb where he’d collected so many points on stage 1.

However, by the day’s end, the jersey would slip from his shoulders as one of his main rivals in the classification, Kobe Goossens (Lotto Soudal) slipped into the day’s breakaway. Swiss Cycling had Simon Pellaud in the move, who mopped up many of the points on the subsequent climbs, but that didn’t stop Goossens from collecting enough to take the jersey.

Goossens had a teammate in the seven-man break in Matthew Holmes, and the other four representatives were Cort, Josef Cerny (Deceuninck-QuickStep) Simone Petilli (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) and Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Israel Start-Up Nation).

They built a lead of six minutes over the second climb of the day, the 13km category-1 ascent to Anzères, where Pellaud took maximum points but Goossens helped himself to the next best haul. The descent was followed by the short category-3 climb at Lens, where the same situation played out.

After another descent, there were some 40km on two loops of a valley road around the start town of Sion, where the time gaps remained stable. Cort won the first intermediate sprint to gain not only points but also a time bonus to reduce his virtual overall deficit to 56 seconds.

With just over 50km to go, the stage intensified, with the Suen climb – 13.6km at 6.8 per cent – preceding the summit finish at the Thyon ski resort. Schmidt was dropped from the break, as his teammate Chris Froome was dropped from the peloton.

Otherwise the two groups made their way steadily up into the fog, which thickened in the final few kilometres to the extent that the race organization took the decision to neutralize the first 3km of the descent. Time gaps were to be frozen at the top of the climb, with cars to guide each group down the other side. The decision appeared to be taken swiftly and communicated clearly but there were question marks over the way it was enacted as the breakaway were led down at a visibly quicker rate than the peloton, which was bunched up behind the director’s car.

By the time both groups had been let loose on the descent’s plateau, what was a gap of 3:45 had extended to almost five minutes. With Goossens also a GC danger at 1:24, it threatened to alter the complexion of the entire Tour de Romandie. That certainly looked the case as the break extended their lead on the bottom section of the descent, taking some 5:45 onto the 21km final climb.

That threat persisted as Movistar – despite a couple of brief interruptions from Ineos – led the bunch but failed to make inroads into the gap for nearly half of the climb. Holmes was quickly dropped from the break, followed by Cerny, as Cort forged clear with Petilli on the lower slopes, leaving Goossens and Pellaud to chase.

14km from the top, the front two had barely lost 20 seconds, but their lead did start to fall and then tumbled when Ineos took over from Movistar through Eddie Dunbar and Rohan Dennis. The pair took the reins with 10km to go and did the damage on the steepest section of the climb, with ramps in the double digits. With 9km to go it was down to four minutes and another minute fell in the next couple of kilometres.

The bunch really shattered when Soler put in a surprise dig with around 7km to go. It was short-lived, but only a dozen or so riders remained. Dennis continued his effort but was forced to pull aside when Hamilton re-opened the hostilities with 5km to go. O’Connor and Woods reacted to form a trio but Woods soon left them behind.

Up the road, Cort was cracking, draining an energy gel in desperation. He was caught by Petilli with just over 4km to go, and then by Woods, who soon flew into the lead.

Thomas then decided to make his move, leaving Porte to mark Soler in a small group with only Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) and Ion Izaguirre (Astana). He breezed past Hamilton, Masnada, and then O’Connor to join Woods, and the pair rode away together in the final 2.5km.

O’Connor dangled just off the back but was distanced when Thomas issued another seated acceleration. Woods sprang from the saddle but never came through, biding his time for a final sprint for the line. His initial surge was matched by Thomas, but when he made his final acceleration he looked around and saw the Ineos rider in a heap.