Ion Izagirre ‘smashes’ the opposition in Tour de Romandie prologue
Ion Izagirre rode to a dominant victory in the technical and hilly 3.95km prologue of Tour de Romandie. Having stopped the clock in 5.33, he put a massive six seconds into Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) who like the rest of the late starters was hampered by heavy rain that caused several crashes on the slippery and technical descent. Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky) was one second further adrift in third.
The dangerous conditions caused both Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEDGE) who had both been in the top 10 at the top of the climb, to crash and so it was no surprise that the late GC riders all opted for safety. Richie Porte (BMC), Chris Froome (Sky), Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) and Simon Spilak (Katusha) who rode very strongly on the climb, were the final four starters but all lost a lot of time, 37, 26, 27 and 20 seconds respectively.
In fact, it was Izagirre’s teammate Nairo Quintana who did best of the late starters. Having been fourth at the top of the climb, he did an excellent descent to finish 18th, losing just 16 seconds to his teammates and getting his race off to a great start.
Tour de Romandie 2016 – prologue results (La Chaux-de-Fonds):
| 1 | Ion Izagirre (Movistar) |
0:05:33 |
| 2 | Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) |
+06” |
| 3 | Michal Kwiatowski (Sky) |
+07” |
| 4 | Geraint Thomas (Sky) |
,, |
| 5 | Gorka Izagirre (Movistar) |
+08” |
| 6 | Moreno Moser (Cannondale) |
+09” |
| 7 | Reto Hollenstein (IAM) |
+11” |
| 8 | Louis Vervaeke (Lotto Soudal) |
,, |
| 9 | Tejay van Garderen (BMC) |
,, |
| 10 | Martjin Keizer (LotooNL-Jumbo) |
+12” |
