Another day in yellow done and dusted! At the end of the third stage of the Tour de Suisse, during which his teammates worked hard on Tuesday, Romain Grégoire took fourth place, eighteen seconds behind the sole survivor of the breakaway, Quinn Simmons. Never in trouble in the hilly final to Heiden, the race leader secured his jersey, which he will attempt to defend on Wednesday on the climb of Splügenpass, at an altitude of over 2,000 meters.
The third stage of the Tour de Suisse was both a first test for the race leader Romain Grégoire, but also a goal in its own right. Having initially come to Switzerland to chase stage wins, the young Frenchman was really keen to give it a go in the day’s last thirty hilly kilometres. That’s why, despite a six-man breakaway that wasn’t threatening on GC, his teammates took the lead after just five kilometres of the 195-kilometer stage route. “This breakaway couldn’t be taken lightly with the stage win in mind,” William Green explained. “We pulled immediately to maintain a small gap, but at one point, they almost stopped in front. There was a counterattack in the peloton, which caused a bit of stress, but we managed to control the situation with Stefan. Eddy did a very good job during the first 90 kilometres, then Olivier took over when we reached more hilly terrain. The goal was then to close the gap on the breakaway before the technical descent with thirty-five kilometres to go. When we saw that the gap wasn’t decreasing, we asked Stefan to pull, even though we would have liked to keep him for the final.”
“We did what we could to race for the win”, William Green
Thanks in particular to the work of the local rider, the gap first got under two minutes, then even under a minute approaching the descent leading to the hilly final. At the foot of the first of the three last climbs, the breakaway had a lead of only twenty seconds, but Quinn Simmons went on his own and the peloton lost ground. On the following climb, Romain Grégoire followed the attacks for the first time, but the lack of organization in the peloton allowed the American champion to maintain a significant margin. Starting the last three, uphill kilometres, Simmons still had a thirty-second lead, which proved to be more than enough to secure victory. A few hundred metres further down, Romain Grégoire responded perfectly to the last attacks before claiming fourth place on the day, meaning third among the favorites. “The peloton was still quite large on the last climb, there were teammates from other teams, so the goal was to be patient and wait for the sprint,” said William. “There were several corners in the last 600 metres, and the plan was to go quite early, like Romain did. He just ran out of legs in the last 50 metres, but it’s not too bad after the last few days in yellow.”
Eighteen seconds behind Simmons, Romain Grégoire nonetheless proved to be among the strongest. “It was still a difficult day,” he said. “We really tried to control the day to fight for the stage with the team, and I’m a little disappointed not to thank them and reward them with a victory. That said, I was beaten by two stronger riders in the peloton and by a rider who put on a show at the front, so I have no regrets.” “We took our responsibilities for the general classification and also for the stage,” added William. “Every rider on the team gave 100%. In the end, we came up short, as did other teams. That’s racing, but we did everything we could to race for the win today.” On the other hand, the Groupama-FDJ leader comfortably retained his yellow jersey, and still has a 25-second gap before the first major climb on Wednesday. “Since the start, every stage has been exciting, and the terrain will be different again tomorrow,” said William. “There will be a long flat period before quite a challenging climb and then a very long descent. Romain is certainly in a position to go over this climb and hopefully sprint from a reduced group.” “I’m expecting a tough day, because I think they’ll try to make up time on me tomorrow”, Romain added. “We’ll have to be strong.”
