Tour de Romandie: Sam Bennett best of the rest as sprinters can't catch Kung

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Bora-Hansgrohe sprinter Sam Bennett was left in philosophical mood after being unable to catch the solo winner of stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie on Thursday, Groupama-FDJ's Stefan Küng, who was the remaining rider of the day's breakaway.

At the end of the wet 174.4km second stage of the Swiss stage race between Le Locle and Morges, Bennett led home the peloton for second place ahead of Bahrain-Merida's Sonny Colbrelli and Simone Consonni (UAE Team Emirates), with Deceunicnk-QuickStep's Elia Viviani taking fifth.

"That was a tough day in the saddle today. It was raining all day long, and we knew that it would be difficult to close the gap due to the wet roads. But congrats to Küng – he rode a smart race," Bennett said on his Bora-Hansgrohe team's website after the stage.

"I gave my best to win the sprint out of the bunch, and I'm satisfied that it worked out. But that was more or less the only chance for the sprinters here at the Tour de Romandie," said the Irishman.

Despite winning the stage by a second shy of a minute, Küng was never in any danger of deposing overall leader Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), who retains a 10-second lead over UAE Team Emirates' Rui Costa, with Küng's Groupama-FDJ teammate David Gaudu another two seconds back.

Friday's third stage hits the mountains, with two second-category climbs on the menu of the 160km stage that starts and finishes in Romont. The following day's 'queen stage' is tougher again, sporting three category-1 climbs, including the summit finish in Torgon, before the race concludes with a 16.85km individual time trial in Geneva on Sunday.

Despite Bennett missing out on victory on Thursday, Bora-Hansgrohe are nevertheless poised to pounce on the GC, with Felix Großschartner in sixth place overall, just 15 seconds down on Roglic, and Emanuel Buchmann in 11th place, 22 seconds down on the race leader.