With very few teams happy after the mountain time trial on stage 3, there was always going to be a major fight on the penultimate stage of this Tour de Romandie. This was the queen stage after all.
There were five cols on the menu, and it was the sort of race profile that riders who were willing to commit to aggressive racing would have been crying out for.
The first climb, Ovronnnaz, was sure to see a move, and after a host of failed attempts the break of the day established itself. Sure enough, Thomas De Gendt was present, along with his victims for the day, Hugh Carthy (EF Education First-Drapac), Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton Scott), Andrey Amador (Movistar) and Hermann Pernsteiner (Team Bahrain-Merida).
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The Belgian was on a mission for the climber’s jersey, in addition to the points competition he was already involved in. The others were sent out to get in the escape with ulterior motives for the big play that was going to come on the final mountain of the day.
Back in the peloton, and with so many plans still brewing, the break were never going to be given much leeway. And so it proved with the De Gendt quintet only afforded a maximum lead of 2:25. That was always going to be manageable as the bunch set about the final four climbs, with the LottoNL-Jumbo doing the majority of the work to keep things in check. Their objective was to get as far into the stage as possible before having to use up Steven Kruiswijk.
Eventually Team Sky decided enough was enough on the last of the 2nd cat climbs. They attempted to take control but this coincided with Bora sending Emanuel Buchmann up the road and EF Drapac doing the same with Martinez. This was the perfect time to get a minute or so lead on the peloton before the big boys attacked each other on the final ascent. Then it got interesting when Jon Izaguirre joined them, making it five out front and three chasing.
Team tactics came properly into play at this point. Carthy stopped riding as he was waiting for Martinez, and Pernsteiner did the same for Bahrain-Merida. It took a while, but eventually everything came together at the bottom of Les Collons and the theories were looking good. Now all they needed was a minute and a half and they would survive the accelerations from behind.
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