A quite unique prologue launched the Tour de Romandie on Tuesday. In Payerne, the riders fought for just about three minutes on a very technical and explosive urban circuit. Maikel Zijlaard claimed victory while the Groupama-FDJ leaders, Lenny Martinez and David Gaudu, respectively lost six and thirteen seconds. The first stage will take the riders to Fribourg on Wednesday on a hilly route.
The Tour de Romandie settled in the small town of Payerne, south of Lake Neuchâtel, to open the week of racing. The day’s menu, however, was quite unusual. “The prologue was only 2,3 kilometres long, with a lot of corners (13) and a small cobbles sector,” explained Nicolas Boisson. “It was really short. We therefore wondered which bike we should use. We let Lenny and David decide if they wanted to go for the road bike or the time trial bike. And after one or two recon laps, they said they felt more comfortable with the road bike. Everyone ended up doing it with the road bike, and I think it was the right choice to take the corners.” Lenny Martinez was also the first to come at the start for Groupama-FDJ, at 3:03 p.m. He completed the course three minutes… and one second later. “Even though it was short, it was super intense,” he said. “I just went full gas. You needed to do some punchy accelerations after the corners, it was a proper lactic effort. My legs and arms were burning, but I did a good time, I’m very happy.”
“It was a good start”, Nicolas Boisson
At 3:26 p.m., his teammate David Gaudu also tackled the course, and completed it with a time of three minutes and eight seconds, which meant thirteen seconds behind the eventual winner Maikel Zijlaard. For his first day of racing in the WorldTour, Thibaud Gruel took 31st place in the prologue, seven seconds behind the winner and five places behind Lenny Martinez. “The goal for Lenny and David was to give 100%,” added Nicolas. “We asked Thibaud and Cyril to give their best as well. Rudy, who was coming back to racing, and Enzo, who likes this discipline, also did it well. It was a good start. Lenny did a good prologue. The gaps are quite tight, but he made small differences on other favourites. There are now two great mountain stages and another time trial waiting for us.” Among the GC contenders, only Ilan van Wilder and Enric Mas finished ahead of Lenny Martinez on Tuesday. “I wanted to limit my losses on the GC leaders, and I didn’t lose too much so everything is going well so far,” concluded the young climber. On Wednesday, a challenging 165-kilometre stage will take the riders to Fribourg.
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