Tour de Romandie: Ethan Hayter wins prologue

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Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) won the prologue to take the first leader's jersey at the six-day Tour de Romandie. Hayter covered the 5.12km time trial route with a winning time of 5:52, finishing four seconds faster than runner-up Rohan Dennis (Jumbo-Visma) and 10 seconds faster than Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe) in third place, while Hayter's teammate Geraint Thomas finished in fourth.

"It was really nice. I had a couple of setbacks at the start of the year, and I've taken a break from racing, training hard, so to come back like this is nice," Hayter said. "[Geraint] did a really good time trial as well, and I think it is looking good for the week ahead. [The time trial] suited me, and I thought I'd give it a crack, and it worked out well."

The 712.3km route across the six days of racing includes 14,000 metres of elevation gain, a parcours well-suited to the climbers.

Hayter heads into stage 1's 178km race from La Grande Beroche to Romont with the leader's jersey as Ineos Grenadiers look to defend their overall title won by Thomas in 2021. Dennis trails in the general classification by four seconds, while Großschartner and Thomas trail by 10 seconds.

"I think orignially we thought these next couple of days could be quite good for me as well. I will just keep trying to win stages and the overall with the rest of the team," Hayter said.

How it unfolded

The Tour de Romandie kicked off with a 5.12km prologue that started at the Stade de la Tuilière in Lausanne. The pan-flat route resembled the shape of a dumbbell and between the two straightaways offered the riders short and somewhat technical loops. The first was located south of the start area that circled the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise before heading north for the second and final circuit around the La Blécherette airport and back to the finish.

Dario Lillo (Switzerland) was the first rider down the starting ramp. The faster early-starters included Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Matteo Sobrero (BikeExchange-Jayco), who finished at the same time of 6:05 minutes. Then it was Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), Mikkel Honoré (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), all crossing the line at 6:06 minutes. All four riders pushed average speeds upwards of 50 kph.

Großschartner was the first to knock his teammate Schachmann and Sobrero out of the early hot seat with a time that was three seconds faster than the pair at 6:02.

His time held for a short while until Hayter passed through the intermediate time check nine seconds faster than Großschartner, and then pushed through a full 10 seconds faster with a time of 5:52, the first rider to cover the route in less than six minutes.

"I went out hard and pushed it through a few of the corners and took this last one at like 70 kilometres per hour," Hayter said directly following his time trial, stating Ineos Grenadiers' goals for the event "To win as many stages as possible and win the GC."

Australian champion Dennis crossed through the intermediate time check just three seconds slower than Hayter and slotted into second place at the finish line with a time of 5:56. The only other rider to break the six-minute mark.

Ineos Grenadiers' Thomas raced through the intermediate check just behind Hayter and Dennis; however, he finished a fraction of a second slower than Großschartner in fourth place.

"It was OK, a funny feeling, especially after Liège on Sunday. I felt OK, to be honest, I just went full gas and took the corners well. I felt that I lacked that little bit in the end, but I'm happy with it. I gave it everything. [My form] is a lot better than a couple of months ago, and I'm getting better all the time, so we will see how this week goes," Thomas said.

"Obviously, we will try and defend and try and win the race again. There are a lot of strong guys here, and we will see on the weekend, I think. I'm still on the way up, but we will give it a go. We've got a few other guys who could be in the mix as well. It should be a good week of racing."

Several of the event's overall general classification contenders finished further down in the time trial, with McNulty at 17 seconds down, Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 19 seconds back, Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) at 20 seconds back. Bahrain Victorious riders Dylan Teuns and Gino Mader are 26 and 27 seconds down, respectively. A recent stage winner at the Tour of the Alps, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), and Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) at 34 seconds back.