Looking ahead to the mountains
01 May 2014

Tour de Romandie (st. 2)

Herrada, Izagirre, Castroviejo, Intxausti all within 30 seconds of Albasini (OGE), new race leader after claiming back-to-back victories in Montreux. Four Cat-1 climbs scheduled on Friday's stage three

Not many incidents are to be described for the Movistar Team during day three in the 2014 Tour de Romandie, a 166km stage from Sion to Montreux coming down to a bunch sprint won by Michael Albasini (OGE), new race leader thanks to bonus seconds in his second consecutive success of the week. The hopes by the telephone squad to set Juanjo Lobato up into today’s gallop went ruined as the pack by Tinkoff-Saxo in the climb of Peney-le-Jorat (Cat-3), located just over 40k from the finish, dropped the Andalusian and left barely ninety riders in the main field.

Castroviejo, Szmyd, Intxausti, Izagirre and Jesús Herrada made it through the split and reached the finish together, with Ion (21st) as top performer and now top-ten overall. Herrada, who wore the white jersey today as 2nd in the young riders’ competition -behind former leader Michal Kwiatkowski (OPQ)-, stays in 4th spot and will tackle with his team-mates a demanding trek on Friday. 181km are set to be covered between Le Bouveret and Aigle, with four Cat-1 ascents: the Col des Planches, Champex-Lac, Les Giettes and Villars-sur-Ollon, the latter two in the finale.