The Tour de Romandie had its first mountain stage today. The 173.9km route took in three categorised climbs and a mountaintop finish. After strong support from his teammates, Rafal Majka finished the stage in a group of ten that broke away on the final climb of the day. Twenty-six seconds after the stage winner, Rafal finished in a strong seventh position, ready to fight for the podium in the later mountain stage.
While the opening prologue and stage 1 each had some respectable climbs, this was the first day the race encountered a first category climb, taking the form of the Pas de Morgins, which also provided the race’s first uphill finish. Early in the stage, a group of six escaped and managed to build a strong enough advantage to spend most of the day at the head of the race. Due to the undulating profile of the course, the gap rose and fell by minutes at a time, but having reached the 150km mark, the peloton had the escapees in its sights and worked to bring the gap down before the final push to the finish.
As the race reached the second category Les Champs, the roads narrowed and this had a clear effect on the peloton, as the group was strung out along the road, with fewer opportunities to work together to pull in the break. As the day went on, the number of escapees reduced as the climbs became harder, until there were only two remaining, with 10km to go.
With 8km remaining, the break was finally caught, just as the climb to the finish up the Pas de Morgins was about to begin. The climb had a deceptively gentle beginning, with a shallow gradient that topped out at 4%, before becoming progressively steeper after 10km of the 14km ascent.
An attack came 6.5km out, and while the peloton allowed this to go, after gaining eight seconds in a short time period, the group started working to bridge the gap. By this point, the climb was ramping upwards, and as the gradient reached 6%, riders began to lose contact with the dwindling peloton and a chasing group of ten formed.
After such a hard effort, Sport Director, Patxi Vila was pleased with the team’s performance in positioning Rafal towards the front of the race. “The team worked well in keeping Rafal near the front ahead of the climb. It was made hard as the tempo on the last two climbs was really high but they got him to where he needed to be so he could test himself on the last climb.”
In this group, Rafal Majka looked calm and comfortable behind, and while the gap increased, he waited to see how the chasing group would react, rather than waste energy trying to bridge to the escape himself without support.
In the first mountain stage, Vila understood Rafal’s reluctance to bridge. “I think that we can be happy. We knew that Rafal was coming from altitude so the first racing test is tricky. He felt ok on the climb, but was missing perhaps a bit of confidence to go with Zakarin and Quintana when they went.
With 4km to go, patches of snow by the side of the road were signs of the altitude the climb was reaching, and as the gap reached 25 seconds and the escapees were working together to increase the gap, Rafal’s group of ten started upping the pace. As a two-man sprint unfolded up the road for the win, the chasing group prepared for the finish, with the Polish Tinkoff leader taking seventh place, crossing the line 26 seconds after the stage winner.
After the race, Vila summed up the day’s racing, and looked ahead to the coming stages. “Rafal is where he needs to be and where he expected to be at this point before the Giro. We always want to win but we can be happy ahead of tomorrow and then the next climbing test on Saturday – seventh on the stage and still within touching distance of the podium on GC. He felt ok in the leaders’ group, which is good, and we can look forward to tomorrow now for the next test.”
After working hard to support the team both at the Tour de Romandie and the early season races, Adam Blythe pulled out of the race today, as Vila explained. “Adam Blythe had to stop today. He was struggling a bit with sickness and I think after a long, hard classics period his body could still be a bit tired.”
On stage 3 tomorrow, the mountain stages are punctuated by a time trial. Longer than the prologue, at 15.11km, the time trial represents another opportunity to test bikes and positions in advance of next month’s Giro d’Italia. Vila was looking forward to the opportunity that a longer time trial route would present. “Tomorrow will be an important test ahead of the Giro in the time trial. It will be a good opportunity to test the positions on the bikes and also to get into the rhythm of a longer TT than the prologue, and then we’re climbing again on Saturday.”
Stage Result
1. Nairo Quintana (COL) Movistar 04:28:40
2. Ilnur Zakarin (RUS) Team Katusha +00:00:00
3. Rui Costa (POR) Lampre-Merida +00:00:26
4. Rigoberto Uran (COL) Cannondale Pro Cycling +00:00:26
5. Thibaut Pinot (FRA) FDJ +00:00:26
7. Rafal Majka (POL) Tinkoff +00:00:26
30. Pawel Poljanski (POL) Tinkoff +00:02:08
47. Yuri Trofimov (RUS) Tinkoff +00:05:47
48. Ivan Rovny (RUS) Tinkoff +00:05:47
58. Robert Kiserlovski (CRO) Tinkoff +00:07:12
90. Manuele Boaro (ITA) Tinkoff +00:15:52
91. Jesus Hernandez (SPA) Tinkoff +00:15:52
DNF Adam Blythe (GBR) Tinkoff
GC after Stage 2
1. Nairo Quintana (COL) Movistar 07:02:05
2. Ilnur Zakarin (RUS) Team Katusha +00:00:18
3. Ion Izagirre (SPA) Movistar +00:00:20
4. Thibaut Pinot (FRA) FDJ +00:00:32
5. Rui Costa (POR) Lampre-Merida +00:00:36
12. Rafal Majka (POL) Tinkoff +00:00:47
29. Pawel Poljanski (POL) Tinkoff +00:02:33
46. Yuri Trofimov (RUS) Tinkoff +00:06:14
47. Ivan Rovny (RUS) Tinkoff +00:06:20
59. Robert Kiserlovski (CRO) Tinkoff +00:07:32
81. Manuele Boaro (ITA) Tinkoff +00:16:21
119. Jesus Hernandez (SPA) Tinkoff +00:24:08
