After yesterday’s opening prologue, today the Tour de Romandie bunch had took on the first open road stage of the race on Wednesday. Faced with a deceptively tough parcours, a strong breakaway ensured that a hard pace was set throughout the stage and the climbs in the finale were rode more aggressively. As a result the bunch thinned down drastically and a group of around 80 made it to the finish to fight it out for the stage win. Gijs Leemreize helped position Niklas Märkl, who had rode strongly to make it over the climbs, but unfortunately the ascents had sapped Märkl’s kick, meaning he finished just outside the top ten on the fast finale.
Märkl expressed: “On paper it looked like one of the possible sprint stages of the race but if you looked more at detail then it was quite a tough local lap that we did. Straight from the start a strong breakaway went and we had the feeling it would be a hard day of racing, and it unfolded like that. When we did the lap the speed went up and the climbs were rode hard and the bunch kept thinning down. I felt quite good and comfortable until the last climb where I had to go my own pace, but luckily we made it back in the descent. Gijs helped a bit and then I placed myself in position for the sprint but I have to say that I didn’t have the kick anymore to do my sprint after the hard stage. I think it was a nice day out for us, the shape is promising and personally I’m already looking forward to Sunday where we might get another chance in the sprint or it could be a day similar to this. Before then we have the time trial and two mountain stages where we will help Gijs and set him up to make a good race of it.”
