Tour de Romandie | Strong field of participants in Swiss mountains – A preview

The Tour de Romandie starts with an extremely short prologue in the streets of Payerne. The time trial is only 2.28 kilometers long and is completely flat. So it will be interesting to see which type of rider can compete for the win, but the prologue will not be important for the rankings.

The first stage in line then includes a hilly ride of 165 kilometers towards Fribourg. There are 2,650 meters of elevation along the way and with five third-category climbs, a second-category climb and a finish after the descent, it seems to be an ideal ride for the attackers. However, the question is whether the favorites plan to give space to adventurers in such a short round.

A day later, a 171 kilometer ride with an uphill finish is on the program. The 2,769 elevation meters are mainly in the second part of the program and so the classification riders will probably battle for victory here.

On day four a time trial will be held for the second time, this time in Oron. With a length of 15.5 kilometers and a hilly course, differences can certainly be made here.

After the time trial, it is the queen stage of this round that will decide the rankings. In total there are 3,512 vertical meters in 151 kilometers with climbs of the first, third, second and third categories before the final climb.

On the last day there is the final stage to and from Vernier of 150 kilometers with an elevation gain of 1,607 meters. This is a local round with third category climbs and the classification leader will probably not get into trouble here.

The field of participants in Romandie is impressive with several strong blocks. For example, INEOS-Grenadiers is at the start with Egan Bernal and Thymen Arensman. Bernal finally seems to be regaining his form after years of injuries and Arensman hopes to put the finishing touches on the Giro d’Italia.

Bora-hansgrohe has a strong trio of Aleksandr Vlasov, Sergio Higuita and Jai Hindley at the start and UAE also has several irons in the fire with Juan Ayuso, Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty. Ayuso is also the top favorite after his victory in the Basque Country.

At Astana they also have a recent winner in their ranks. Alexey Lutsenko won the Giro d’Abruzzo and is now looking for more success in the small tours. Bahrain-Victorious hopes that Damiano Caruso shows form in the run-up to the Giro d’Italia and the same goes for Eddie Dunbar at Jayco AlUla.

Furthermore, EF Education-EasyPost with Richard Carapaz and Rigoberto Uran is a team to keep an eye on, as are Lidl-Trek with Ciccone and Tao Geoghegan Hart and Groupama-FDJ with David Gaudu and Lenny Martinez. Finally, Cofidis and Movistar hope that Guillaume Martin and Enric Mas can do something in the mountains.

Not every team will aim for a ranking in Romandie. Visma | Lease a Bike will probably hunt for stages, just as will be the case in the Giro. Koen Bouwman and Jan Tratnik in particular seem suitable for this.

At Soudal Quick-Step this role will be reserved for Ilan van Wilder and Kasper Asgreen, while Andreas Kron will be looking for places in the early breakaway at Lotto-Dstny with Harm Vanhoucke and Thomas de Gendt.

As for the Dutch, in addition to Arensman and Bouwman, there are also Sam Oomen, Pepijn Reinderink, Gijs Leemreize, Tim Naberman, Robert Gesink, Bart Lemmen, Tim van Dijke. Roel van Sintmaartensdijk and Maikel Zijlaard at the start.