Without any particular ambitions regarding the general classification, Romain Grégoire didn’t have much to aim for in the final stage of the Tour de Suisse this Sunday. Yet, in the very difficult uphill time trial in Stockhütte, the Frenchman put in another solid performance. He indeed secured fourteenth place on the day, 2’32 behind the stage and overall winner Joao Almeida, and therefore confirmed his seventeenth place overall. A great way to conclude an equally great week.
The final ten kilometres of the 2025 Tour de Suisse weren’t the most enjoyable for sure. The WorldTour event was indeed coming to an end on Sunday with a “cronoscalata”, meaning an uphill time trial. In particular, a nine-kilometre climb averaging 9% served as the deciding factor on this final day. “The course was so hard that just completing the time trial required a huge effort,” explained Maxime Latourte, the team’s coach. “We actually said to most of the riders to commit to it, without necessarily pushing their limits, and everyone did a well-executed time trial to finish the week in a good way.” The last rider to start for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team, Romain Grégoire, set off at 4 p.m. and established the 48th (final) time at the intermediate checkpoint. “He was a bit cautious at the start,” added Maxime. “He was quite far back at the intermediate, I thought he’d started off easy, but then he kept accelerating. As he went along, he realized the legs were better than expected, he continued to increase the pace and finished quite strong.”
“A really successful week”, William Green
The former yellow jersey holder set the fifth-fastest provisional time at the finish, which became the fourteenth after the last competitors had reached the line. “He wanted to be committed and precise, but without giving too much importance to it, as is sometimes the case,” added Maxime. “There was no pressure. Mentally, it’s very good for him to finish on a good note like that. It means he can come out of this Tour de Suisse with a really good momentum, and we’re going to need it!” In the general classification, he therefore held onto seventeenth place. “It’s been a really successful week for the team,” added William Green. “Our objectives were stage results, and we finished five times in the top-5, three times on the podium, and we got a stage win. I believe we really achieved our objective, and it was a nice bonus to defend the yellow jersey for four days. It wasn’t just Romain; the whole team contributed and enjoyed this momentum. All the guys have just enjoyed racing their bikes this week and when you enjoy racing your bike, you can race hard, you can influence the race and achieve some success. The motivation is really high, especially heading to the National Championships”.
