The opening stage of Romandie was dominated by exactly the types of riders who had. So the fastest of the fast classics. Decathlon has already surpassed the number of victories achieved last year

166 km, 2,631 altitude meters, one mountain double and five triples. Last (1.8 km, 7.3%) 10 km before the finish. The final 4 km is only slightly undulating.

Six kilometers after the start, Juri Hollmann (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Rune Herregodts (Intermarché-Wanty), Patrick Gamper (BORA-hansgrohe), Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Fausto Masnada (Soudal-Quick) Step) and Joey Rosskopf (Q36.5). They drove for a maximum of 4 minutes.

Juri Hollmann, who after four years in Movistar, transferred to Alpecin for this year went after the climbing premiums most intensively. So, after winning the first three, he already had a mountain jersey for tomorrow. Of course, if he completes the stage. And since he got the chance, he added two more of the total six.

In the peloton, it was interesting that the man in yellow, Majkel Zijlaard (Tudor), did not survive the third climbing bonus after 90 km, and he dropped out of the peloton together with several other riders. A signal to his co-drivers that he no longer has to work at the head of the main group, where they were replaced by Movistar, a believer in the abilities of Alex Aranbur.

19-year-old Jan Christen (UAE Emirates), joined by David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Richard Carapaz ( EF Education-EasyPost), but they barely lasted 4 km.

The fugitives still had around 1.5 minutes to spare, so in addition to Movistar, selected riders of Visma-LaB (for van Dijk?), Lidl-Trek (for Consonni and Nys) and Decathlon (for Godon and Vendrame) started participating in the descent. The matador of the world peloton, Robert Gesink from the Dutch team, worked the hardest in these passages. 9 km before the finish, immediately after the last VP, they managed to eliminate the leak.

And the final battle for the stage from a group of almost 90 competitors could begin. The Decathlon riders mastered this art brilliantly today. At one hundred and fifty, they went into the final sprint in a pair behind each other and thus also crossed the finish line. Dorian Godon won before Andrea Vendram. Gianni Vermeersch from Alpecin finished third.

It seems that with the arrival of a new strong title sponsor, the French team started to do better. While last year they collected 9 wins for the whole season, this year they already have 11 on their account.

As a bonus, Dorian Godon completed the prologue yesterday as the fourth fastest, so thanks to today’s bonus seconds, he wore the yellow jersey after the stage!

Dorian Godon: “The whole team did a great job, just like it has been since the beginning of the season. Jaakko Hänninen worked to catch up with the refugees. I fell behind at the top of the final climb, but Jordan Labrosse and Bruno Armirail brought me back into the peloton with 3km to go. Then we were driven into the perfect position by Nicolas Prodhomme, who is a climber. We ended up doing the double with Andrea Vendram and I got the leader’s jersey, that’s really nice. It’s my first WorldTour race win. I was patient and today I was rewarded. Yellow jersey? That’s a bonus.”

Josef Černý was classified in 121st place (+10:43) and Pavel Bittner in 153rd place (+17:11).