Key Takeaways: Tour de Romandie 2024
Breaking down the key moments of the six stage race and what it tells us about the status of some key Tour de France GC contenders
At last weekend’s Tour de Romandie, Carlos Rodríguez continued to show that he is Ineos' top GC option, taking the overall victory at the six-stage race through the French-speaking region of Switzerland with an incredibly patient and balanced performance that saw him best a start list packed with big-name GC talents. The race, in addition to giving third-place Florian Lipowitz a platform to ride his way onto Bora’s Giro d’Italia squad (at the expense of a very-upset Emanuel Buchmann), held quite a few interesting data points about where some of the major contenders for the 2024 Tour de France stand and gave us a preview of the battle to challenge Tadej Pogačar, Primož Roglič, and Remco Evenepoel come July.
Tour of Romandie 2024 Overall Top Ten:
1) Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos) +0
2) Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) +7
3) Florian Lipowitz (Bora-Hansgrohe) +9
4) Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step) +21
5) Juan Ayuso (UAE) +27
6) Enric Mas (Movistar) +38
7) Richard Carapaz (EF-Easypost) +49
8) Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) +52
9) Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek) +1’02
10) Egan Bernal (Ineos) +1’23
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Select Romandie Race Notebook
Stage 2
2.3km-to-go: Heading into the key final portion of the race’s first uphill finish, and with the remnants of the early breakaway dangling just 30 seconds up the road, Luke Plapp, who is just 24 seconds out of the race lead, attacks. Bora’s Florian Lipowitz is the only rider who follows.
1.5km: Plapp, with Lipowitz on his wheel, quickly closes the gap to the leaders. But, instead of blowing past them, as you would expect from a GC rider who has attacked late to the early breakaway on the final climb, the group stays together as Plapp sets a pace on the front.
400m: Despite needing as much time as possible for his GC hopes, Plapp eventually pulls off the front of the group to position himself for the sprint/attack. Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R) takes the front, while Lidl-Trek’s Thibau Nys smartly slots into second wheel.
300m: Plapp attacks the group from surprisingly far out, while Nys, playing the role of the savvy veteran at just 21 years old, pushes around Vendrame to follow while looking like he is more than comfortable at this pace.
Finish: Nys comes by Vendrame to win the stage and take the first WorldTour wins of his career, while Plapp, who faded slightly, slots into a strong GC position due to his time gains over the rest of the contenders. Lipowitz comes in ten seconds later and moves up the GC ladder, while his teammate Vlasov leads home the peloton four seconds later.
Stage 4
5km: On the final climb of the final mountain stage, Ineos, who has Carlos Rodríguez sitting in 4th place overall, 11 seconds behind race leader Juan Ayuso following the Stage 3 ITT, has Egan Bernal soft-attack off the front to stress-test the rest of the GC contenders after they have set a hard, consistent pace on the climb. Ayuso initially attempts to follow but, after struggling to hold his teammate’s wheel, looks back to see where the rest of the GC contenders are. After realizing the rest of the group can’t respond, Rodríguez jumps out of the bunch to join his teammate (some might have viewed this as chasing down his own teammate, but with Bernal so far back in the GC after the TT, Ineos is committed to Rodríguez as their lone GC hope at this point).
3.9km: Once on the wheel of Bernal, Rodríguez sits back as his teammate shreds the race leader, who appears to be under significant pressure at this point. Also, notice how solid Rodríguez (in second wheel) is on his bike while the rest are rocking and rolling.
2.2km: After Lipowitz pulls an elite group clear, Richard Carapaz, who entered the stage just over a minute behind Rodríguez, attacks.
1.4km: With Ayuso and the rest of the GC contenders dropped, Carapaz, who has a 43-second gap on the two chasers, appears to be away not just for the stage win but a surprise overall title.
300m: However, Rodríguez, fully understanding what he has to do, sets a hard pace to close the gap to Carapaz as they head into the final 500 meters. Lipowitz, sensing a chance for a stage win, attacks in pursuit of the leader.
150m: Carapaz, who has slowed down significantly and seen his lead evaporate, is being hotly pursued by a surging Lipowtiz as he enters the final few hundred meters.
Finish: Carapaz holds off a flying Lipowitz to win the stage, while the young German moves up into third place overall despite narrowly missing out on the stage win. Behind, Rodríguez moves into the race lead and all but wraps up overall victory after finishing tens of seconds in arrears of the winner but ahead of his GC rivals.
Key Takeaways
1) Carlos Rodríguez & Ineos: The 23-year-old Spaniard proves his fifth place at last year’s Tour de France was no fluke by netting his first career GC victory against an incredibly deep field of major stage racing talents.
And, almost more importantly, over the course of a week, Rodríguez has positioned himself as his Ineos team’s best stage racing option and de facto outright leader for the Tour de France.
This is particularly important since getting priority at Ineos as a non-British rider can be difficult, and this result comes at a time when Ineos’ other options, like Geraint Thomas, have been off the pace at lower-level stage races.
The most impressive thing about Rodríguez's overall win here is that he did it with such poise. He simply chipped away at Juan Ayuso day after day until he found himself leading the race after Stage 4.
It was refreshing to see a young rider execute an overall victory with a measured and balanced week-long performance in an age of long-range all-out attacks.
His Ineos team’s ability to draw up and execute a plan, particularly Egan Bernal's, was impressive. This makes me feel far more bullish about their ability to challenge for podium finishes at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France.
After a dreadful season start, Ineos has won four races, including three at the WorldTour level, in the last three weeks.
2) Juan Ayuso & UAE: For the second straight year, the 21-year-old Ayuso left the time trial at Romandie in pole position only to fade in the final few stages.
This may be overly critical of such a young rider, but in his third full year as a professional, Ayuso, in addition to showing immense raw talent, also appears to be displaying a knack for up-and-down performances in stage races.
Since consistency is a trait that is somewhat untethered from age and experience, this is something to note regarding his future Grand Tour contending potential.
Additionally, the consistency isn’t unique to Ayuso. In fact, his UAE team, despite their ability to rack up a staggering amount of UCI points and wins so far in 2024, has now failed to win three WorldTour stage races in 2024 (UAE Tour, Paris-Nice, and Romandie) after leaving the time trial stages with the race seemingly in hand.
This trend could mean nothing, but with the team struggling to offer line-to-line support for Pogačar at recent Grand Tours, this is something to keep an eye on as they enter the brutal gauntlet of the Giro/Tour double.
3) Unknowns Surge as Big Names Struggle to Hold Pace: As the previously 23-year-old German Florian Lipowitz rode his way onto his Bora’s team Giro d’Italia roster with an incredible ride to finish third place overall, plenty of big-name stars, like Enric Mas, Jai Hindley, and both Simon and Adam Yates, finished off the podium and left major question marks about their status heading into the key portion of the season before the Tour de France.
It is easy to handwave these underperformances away, but the trend of riders slowly building into form as the Tour de France nears has all but disappeared in recent years as it seems to be tougher and tougher for riders to course correct after being just slightly off the pace a month or two.
For example, Adam Yates won the overall at this race last year before finishing third at the Tour de France two months later, and the fact that he was significantly further behind at the same point in the season in 2024 could signal that it will be tough for him to match that performance this summer, and could leave the door open for a relative outsider to potentially snag a Tour de France podium spot.
Watch out for a full Giro d’Italia preview later this week…