Chris Froome (Sky) put a different gloss on his Tour de Romandie by soloing to victory on the toughest stage of the race to Villars, while Nairo Quintana (Movistar) took an important stride towards overall victory by containing the attacks of Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) on the final haul up Barboleusaz.
As driving rain swept across the Vaud in the final three hours of racing, Froome attacked in the company of Tejay van Garderen (BMC) with a shade under 40 kilometres remaining, as the race tackled the first of two successive ascents of the stiff climb of Barboleusaz.
Froome began the day more than 17 minutes down on general classification after his surprising setback on stage 2, though with van Garderen only 1:22 off the lead, Quintana’s Movistar guard was keen to keep the move on a relatively tight leash.
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The pair collaborated well together, catching and eventually dropping Pavel Kochetkov (Katusha) and Bob Jungels (Etixx-QuickStep), the two survivors of the early break, before Froome distanced van Garderen three kilometres from the summit on the second time up the Barboleusaz.
“Tejay came with me, and it worked well. He had the GC as an objective and I wanted a stage win, so I think it worked out well for both of us,” Froome said. “It’s been a tough race so far so to come and win the queen stage, especially attacking so far out, is really a great feeling. It’s good for the team, and it’s nice not to come away from the race empty-handed.”
Froome was 20 seconds clear of van Garderen over the summit, with the reduced yellow jersey group a further 16 seconds back, and he took no risks on the rain-soaked descent, eventually winning the stage by just 4 seconds from Ion Izagirre (Movistar).
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