Stage victory and lead for Russian breakaway specialist
Pavel Brutt (Katusha) won the first stage of the Tour of Romandie between Martigny and the mountaintop finish of Leysin on a wet day in southwestern Switzerland. The Russian escaped from his breakaway companions on the final climb to the finish to take the victory alone. Brutt’s companions in the day’s long breakaway filtered over the line behind him, with Oleksandr Kvachuk (Lampre-ISD) taking second place, Branislau Samoilau (Movistar) third, and Australian champion Jack Bobridge (Garmin-Cervélo) fourth.
“That was really hard,” said Brutt after the finish, “with a headwind during the first 50km, but I was really strong.”
With his victory, Brutt also secured the race lead, but doesn’t expect to be wearing the jersey all the way to the finish in Geneva on Sunday.
“I’m not a rider for the overall classification,” he explained. “I’m much more of a hunter of stage wins and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the leader’s jersey.”
The four riders escaped the peloton after just a few kilometres of the 172.6km stage and, with no response in the worsening weather, they had opened up a gap of 12’50” after just 20km.
With the Euskaltel-Euskadi team of prologue winner Jonathan Castroveijo unwilling, or unable, to take up the chase to defend the young Basque rider’s lead, the task was taken up by runner-up Taylor Phinney’s BMC Racing team.
With the assistance of Astana and Liquigas-Cannondale, BMC Racing managed to steadily reduce the quartet’s advantage to 4’05” by the summit of the first category Col de Pillon after 150km; with just 22km to race though, it now looked a tough task to close it down completely if the riders up front had managed to conserve any strength.
On the descent to the foot of the final climb to the finish, Brutt and Samoilau distanced their two breakaway companions. Meanwhile, behind them, there was a split in the peloton and Linus Gerdemann (Leopard Trek) attacked in an attempt to make it up to the leaders.
Almost as soon as Brutt and Samoilau hit the climb to Leysin and the finish the Russian dropped the weakening Belarusian and set off alone. Kvachuk and Bobridge were not far behind, with just Gerdemann between them and the peloton; Brutt still had 3’30” in hand though, but with 8km to climb alone his victory was far from certain.
Gerdemann was unable to stay away for very long and the German was soon pulled back by the BMC Racing led peloton. Once he was caught the Leopard Trek team began to lend its support to the chase.
Brutt was refusing to weaken up ahead though; unlike Samoilau, who was reeled in and passed by Kvachuk as he began to struggle on the climb.
Brutt finally crested the top of the climb; looking over his shoulder, vainly trying to see the riders chasing him, and went on to take his second victory of the season, after February’s Classica Sarda. Kvachuk followed him 56 seconds later, with Samoilau just managing to hold off Bobridge.
Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD) led the peloton over the line after almost two minutes, with Castroveijo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) finishing in a group behind the peloton; but he would have lost his yellow jersey to Brutt anyway. The Russian now leads the race by exactly a minute over Kvachuk, with the entire breakaway making up the top four.