Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) collected his fifth victory of the season on his seventh day of racing in 2026, winning stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie and moving into the overall lead of the race.
Having placed sixth in Tuesday’s opening prologue, Pogačar returned to winning ways on Wednesday’s opening road stage, which featured the first mountain he has scaled in competition in 2026.
The world champion attacked and ripped up the field on that climb over Ovronnax and although he didn’t launch into one of his long-range solo raids, he was able to triumph in a four-man sprint down in the valley in Martigny.
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“The last 23km was headwind and to try to do something would be very stupid,” Pogačar said, referencing the flat run along the valley that followed the descent of Ovronnax and explaining why he perhaps rode within himself on that climb.
Martinez was impressive in going with him, and Lipowitz soon got on terms after his teammate Primož Roglič attempted to follow immediately but faded quickly. Nordhagen gave chase alone and only made contact in the valley, with the quartet managing to stay away despite seeing their lead shrink from a minute to 15 seconds inside the final kilometer.
“I was happy to have two young eager guys to pull with me, they did super good job, they were super strong,” said Pogačar. He hadn’t counted up wrong; rather, Lipowitz was not included in that praise; the German was a passenger who refused to share any workload as Red Bull leaned on Roglič’s presence in the group behind.
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