In 2022, Rohan Dennis looked to be on the cusp of victory at the Tour de Romandie, playing his hand to perfection right through from the prologue to the sprint stages and a brutal day in the mountains where he found an impressive new limit on the climbs.
In the end all, that stood between the Australian and overall victory at the six-day WorldTour race was a 16km outing in his favoured discipline, the time trial, but everything that had gone in to maintaining his lead through the preceding days turned a strength into a weakness.
“I guess it was one of those days where I probably knew the writing was on the wall from the night before when I was cramping in the podium tent and I had to have someone actually put my shoes and socks on for me,” Dennis said looking back on that final stage mountainous time trial to Villars at the 2022 Tour de Romandie.
“So I thought ‘it’s all good, I’ll recover like I have every day’ but that night and the next morning, it was, ‘maybe I’ve gone a little bit deeper than I actually thought’. I was hopeful – I prepared as if it was just another TT that I could win – but I absolutely blew.”
The 2019 and 2018 world time trial champion started out strong on that final stage as he took off from the gate clad in the green and gold jersey of the Australian champion, coming through the intermediate check in third. However by the time he crossed the line he had not only handed the 2022 race lead over to Aleksandr Vlasov but 22nd place in the time trial meant he also fell completely away from the podium, finishing eighth overall.
“It was probably one of the worst time trials I’ve ever done but at the same time … it was a great week,” Dennis told Cyclingnews early in 2023. “In the end, I couldn’t take too much away from myself in the sense that I was there from start to finish, except for the last TT.”
The Tour de Romandie is a race Dennis has regularly made a mark in over the years – either by standing on stage podiums, with stints in the leader’s jersey or top ten results – but in 2022 he rose to a new level. The 32-year-old had came second in the opening prologue and then stepped into the lead on stage 1 with another second place that came after he launched a searing attack on the hilltop finish. Dennis then held firm through the next two reduced bunch sprints, even making it to the podium again on stage 3 before conceding just a slim three seconds to the top climbers on the summit finish to Zinal on…
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