Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), race leader(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The 2014 Tour of Romandie route(Image credit: Tour of Romandie)
Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The first road stage of the Tour de Romandie has been shortened to just 88km after heavy snow on the Simplon Pass forced the race organisers to avoid the 2000m high climb.
The Polish national champion went off early and set a time of 6:22 for the hilly course. Australia's Rohan Dennis (Garmin-Sharp) showed his stage race credentials by finishing second, four seconds slower than Kwiatkowski. Sprinter Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) was third, also at four seconds. World champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) finished fifth at five seconds.
Chris Froome (Team Sky) was the last rider to start as the 2013 winner and finished 13th, nine seconds slower than Kwiatkowski. Tejay van Garderen (BMC) crashed during his ride and lost close to three minutes.
Kwiatkowski will wear the race leader's yellow jersey during the shortened stage but played down his chances of overall victory.
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"It's hard to say if I can win overall. I'll look at the GC day by day," said Kwiatkowski. "It depends on how I recover from the Ardennes Classics. This is the last race of my spring season. We've got good riders with Tony Martin and Rigoberto Uran, so we're looking forward to the next few stages."
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
