Thomas quickest in Romandie prologue

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Team Sky's Geraint Thomas prevailed in the short 3.34km prologue at the Tour de Romandie, topping Radioshack-Nissan rider Giacomo Nizzolo and 2008 prologue winner Mark Cavendish by a handful of seconds.

Thomas benefitted in part from dry roads, setting his winning mark before rain began to fall for the late starters. The wet roads impacted the defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC), who finished nearly 20 seconds down, while Thomas' teammate Bradley Wiggins also failed to make a statement and finished in 11th position.

The Welshman is fit from his participation in the 2012 Track World Championships in Melbourne earlier this month where he won gold in the team pursuit and silver in the men's madison. He proved that his focus on the track in recent weeks has not blunted his road skills as helped to put Team Sky in a good position for rest of the week. With Cavendish in third and Michael Rogers coming home in fourth position it was a dominant start by the British team, who have high hopes for Bradley Wiggins in the overall classification.

“It’s a nice little win," Thomas said. "The team told me I was racing here about 10 days ago so it was great to come over. I always knew that I’d be up there. Fortunately with the weather conditions it played into my hands a bit but there was only really one corner. There’s only so much time you can lose in one corner.

“For myself now it’s purely a team role. I’ll be there to help Cav [Mark Cavendish] in the sprints wherever they come and Bradley is going for the GC as well so I’ll be there to help him wherever I can. Coming from the track I don’t really have the climbing legs at the minute. I’ve been used to 4k the last couple of weeks with the track but we’ll give it everything and see what happens.”

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