Aigle, May 2nd – 2014
The 180 kilometer long third stage of Tour de Romandie was an obvious opportunity for the more hardcore climbers in the field to make their mark on the race. Four category 1-climbs were on the menu and the last summit was 16 kilometers from the finish line. A long descending run-in towards the finish line made it an explosive finale.
Six riders made an early escape to form today’s breakaway and while they were fighting to keep everyone behind, the field gradually slimmed down as the mountainous terrain took tis toll on the riders. With 38 kilometers to go, the last standing escapee was swept up by a decimated front group with all the favorites including Tinkoff-Saxo’s Rafal Majka, Nicolas Roche and youngster, Eduard Beltran.
Halfway up the final slope, Chris Froome (Sky) launched one of his dreaded attacks and even though Majka was looking very strong at first, he had to give up following the Brit. But he gained strength teaming up with World Champion, Rui Costa while Simon Spilak (Katusha) bridged the gap to Froome.
The front duo passed the summit 40 seconds ahead of the chase group and the tandem thundered down the mountain and on the finish line, Simon Spilak (Katusha) was the fastest man. Tinkoff-Saxo’s Rafal Majka crashed on the final part of the slope and finished outside the top-10. The overall win will now be a duel between Chris Froome and Simon Spilak.
Tinkoff-Saxo DS, Fabrizio Guidi states:
“Looking at the results after today’s stage, one can think that we’re not ready for the Giro. But we had all 8 guys between the 60 riders in the front of the field today and Rafal was sitting very comfortably with World Champion, Rui Costa to the top of the final climb where he had an unfortunate close encounter with the wet asphalt. He isn’t injured and is on the start line again tomorrow. I am however sorry that we are now out of the GC but I’m still confident that we’re ready for the Giro,” said Guidi.
