Saturday’s penultimate day of the WorldTour Tour de Romandie was its queen stage, where Lenny Martinez beat João Almeida at the top of a summit finish and the Frenchman assumed the race lead with a time trial remaining.
The Race So Far
Brits Samuel Watson and Matthew Brennan took the first two days, both claiming the race lead. Alex Baudin ripped the leader’s jersey from Brennan’s shoulders on Thursday by finishing second to Lorenzo Fortunato and then kept it on Friday when Jay Vine attacked in the final kilometre to earn the day’s flowers.
Fifteen riders, including Vine, his teammate Almeida, Martinez and Remco Evenepoel were within 1:05 of Baudin.
The Course
Saturday’s route was short but had a sting in the tail. The Thyon 2000 climb was 20.2 km of 7.7 percent. Michael Woods won there in 2021 to take over the Romandie lead, ultimately finishing fifth on GC. There was rain on the parcours.
Ben Zwiehoff, who has been in the KOM lead since Stage 1, was part of a trio of fugitives that romped up the road after the start, the German scoring maximum points on Cat. 1 Anzère and Cat. 2 Lens. UAE-Emirates was hungry and pulled the peloton not too far behind.
The Zwiehoff Three continued up and over Cat. 1 Nax and Cat. 3 Suen. After collecting all the remaining Tour de Romandie maximum KOM points, the man in the light blue jersey waited for the peloton, his job done.
By the foot of Thyon 2000, the doomed remaining escapees were 40 seconds ahead of a rampaging main bunch. Lotto took over from UAE-Emirates with Bahrain-Victorious massed just behind. Baudin was dropped. With 12.5 km to go Ineos came to the front to declare its intentions, with Canada’s Michael Leonard present.
In his first stage race of the season, Remco Evenepoel couldn’t hang on with 8 km remaining.
Nine riders were left in the lead group. Vine accelerated. Last year’s winner Carlos Rodriguez fell back. Vine, Almeida, Fortunato and Martinez were left. Only Martinez could go with Almeida’s 4 km from the peak. The Frenchman fought hard to stay with the Portuguese.
Almeida led under the red kite. Martinez opened up the sprint before the final curve and clung on to his gap for the win.
Sunday’s last stage is a 17.1-km time trial in Geneva. Almeida would appear to have the…
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