Tadej is coming off a successful transition from one-day races to stage races. After taking 6th place in the prologue of the Tour de Romandie, he claimed victory in stage 1, which started and finished in Martigny (171.2 km), where he took over the leader’s yellow jersey.
His team, UAE Team Emirates – XRG, kept the peloton under control all day, then set up Tadej for an attack on the demanding climb to Ovronnaz (8.9 km, 9.8% average gradient). At first, only Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) could follow his acceleration, and then Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe) joined them before the summit.
A technical descent into the valley followed, after which there were still 22 flat kilometers to the finish. There, the leading trio was caught by Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma Lease a Bike). The quartet held just under a minute over an ever-growing chase group, but the gap began to shrink because Lipowitz was not contributing to setting the pace.
Even so, the four stayed out front all the way to the line, and Tadej was convincingly the strongest, even though he had spent by far the most time on the front of the break. »I didn’t plan anything, but it was nice to win against the youngsters. We’ve had a great race, a quick day, and I’m happy with the win in the sprint of four,« Tadej said after his fifth win of the season and the 113th of his career.
»The last 22 km was headwind— it would have been really stupid to try anything. I was happy to have two young, eager guys to pull with me. They were very strong and did their job excellently. We managed to stay at the front, which was difficult because there were three of us, and one guy sitting on the wheel. We can all be proud that we stayed in front,” Tadej revealed why he didn’t decide on a solo move.
»Every victory is important, and today I won the first stage of this year’s stage races, and on the beautiful Romandy course at that—I really enjoyed it,« Tadej added.
In the overall standings he leads by 7 seconds over Lipowitz and 16 over Martinez. »We saw today it was all on us. The team did an excellent job, that’s why I’m also I’m happy to take the yellow jersey. We’ll try to defend it every stage, and the best defense is to attack. We’ll see how we approach the next days. Super good job from the team today; we have a tough week ahead of us, but we have a strong enough team to defend the yellow jersey,« Tadej is optimistic.
There are still four demanding tests ahead for him and his team, UAE Team Emirates – XRG. In the hilly Tour de Romandie, the riders will have to conquer a total of 14,266 meters of elevation gain by Sunday’s finish in Leysin.