Movistar’s Ion Izagirre claimed the first leader’s jersey of the Tour de Romandie on Tuesday after winning the prologue time trial by six seconds over Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and seven seconds over the Team Sky duo of Michal Kwiatkowski and Geraint Thomas, who finished third and fourth.
Izagirre covered the 3.95km course in La Chaux-de-Fonds with a time of 5:03, creating a six-second buffer over Dumoulin, who eeked out the runner-up spot just ahead of the Sky teammates.
"I knew my condition was still great after the classics and this result is a happy confirmation of that,” Izagirre said. “We checked the course at noon today and I really liked it, with that short, sharp climb followed by the technical descent, through the small houses before the finish. It all turned out well and we're so happy to get this win.”
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The opening day’s urban prologue course was fast and technical. At times it looked more like a criterium course than a time trial, with high speeds in the opening and closing sections driving the times. Sporadic wet weather, including occasional snow flurries, added to the challenge.
Although the parcours for the day had riders choosing between their normal road set ups and their time trial machines, Izagirre said the earlier performance by his brother Gorka, who finished fifth on the day, convinced him to go with his aero bike.
“I was doubtful about which bike should I bring into this course, the road race one or the TT one, but I saw Gorka doing great on the Speedmax and I took a last-minute change when I was already set to start with the traditional one,” he said.
“To be honest, my brother played a big part in this victory, with those good time checks - he was fantastic. Now it's time to enjoy this victory; we don't know how the week will go. We've got a strong team, with Nairo [Quintana] always on good form, Andrey [Amador] testing his legs before the Giro... Let's hope we can keep this jersey."
Quintana finished 18th on the day, 16 seconds behind his winning teammate. Amador was 13, just 13 seconds back.
Other pre-race favourites in the top 20 include Tejay van Garderen (BMC), who was ninth at 11 seconds and Thibaut Pinot, who was 11th at 12 seconds.
Wednesday's stage 1 route takes riders over 166.9km from La Chaux-de-Fonds to Moudon.
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