The first stage at the Tour de Romandie Féminin saw the peloton tackle a 134 kilometre route from La Grande Béroche to Lausanne. Although there were no major mountains, a plethora of hills and rolling roads made for an attritional day in the saddle. Despite some attempts, no real break was able to form until the race entered the final 40 kilometres where Francesca Barale made it into a group of 17 for the team. Building a gap that peaked at 50 seconds, some teams weren’t happy with the composition of the group and the chase began, and things were brought back together as the race entered the last 15 kilometres.
Somr unsuccessful attack attempts followed, including one from Juliette Labous, before two-riders managed to get a small gap but once again the peloton upped the pace and it all regrouped as they charged towards the final two kilometre drag to the line. Well represented in the reduced peloton, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL moved up well as a unit bringing Nienke Vinke and Labous towards the fore. In the end, Vinke showed a good turn of speed to take a strong sixth place while Labous took tenth ahead of tomorrow’s mountain top finish.
Vinke said: “Today the plan was to race aggressively and create a good situation to go for a day result. We attacked a lot. Francesca ended up in the breakaway, but the breakaway got caught on the flat part before the last climb, so Josie and Francesca focused on the sprint while Eleonora, Juliette and me tried to follow the attacks. The pace was really high on the last climb so unfortunately Josie and Francesca were not in the position to sprint anymore, so then I just gave it my all to the finish line.”