Tour de Romandie #1: Wet and Icy start to Swiss Tour

Ion Izaguirre (Movistar) took the first leader’s jersey at the Tour de Romandie after winning the opening prologue ahead of Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky).

The Tour de Romandie got off to a cold and wet start but thankfully it was only a short 3.9km prologue that riders had to deal with today. Teams had to weigh up the risk versus reward as nobody wanted to end their Tour by crashing out on the icy roads of Le Chaux-de-Fonds, yet the fact remained that a World Tour win was up for grabs.

Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka erred on the side of caution as our African Team also had to consider our debut appearance at the Giro d’Italia is also just around the corner. With a number of our riders here at Romandie set to possibly start the first grand tour of the year, safety was the first priority.

Cameron Meyer would be our highest placed finisher on the day as he stopped the clock 29 seconds after Izaguirre’s winning time. Our other 7 riders had no issues out on the course and now there is still all to race for over the coming 5 stages.

When we arrived at the start the weather wasn’t great. There was this mixture of snow, sleet and rain. Everyone was kind of debating as to whether the race would go ahead or not. It eventually did and our focus was to be safe and stay healthy. We made sure our riders stayed warm so that they would be ready for the upcoming stages, and also the longer term objectives like the Giro and California. During the middle part of the prologue the weather did ease up a bit, so some guys were able to take a few risks on the descent but it soon started to rain again so the guys rode solidly but used their heads. Cameron was our fastest today, he looked so smooth on the climb but with the rain coming down on the descent he rode sensibly. We are looking forward to some good racing in the next couple of days now.
Oli Cookson – Sport Director