Tour de Romandie 2018: Preview

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The final Romandie podium of Porte, Yates, and Roglic(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

With the spring Classics over for another season, the Tour de Romandie ushers in a new phase of stage racing in the 2018 campaign. Once again, the Romandie organisers have provided a testing six-day route with little room for riders to catch their breath. Two short tests against the clock punctuate a route dominated by the Swiss mountains and one - potentially two - days left for the shallow pool of sprinters in the field.

The 72nd edition of the Tour de Romandie may lack the Giro d'Italia contenders, who no longer use the Swiss race as their final tune-up before the Corsa Rosa, but the field remains strong, with several Tour de France hopefuls on the start line. The conditions could also play a significant role. Rain and even snow have been seen in recent editions of the race, with difficult conditions leading to unpredictable racing.

This year BMC Racing arrive with Richie Porte, Tejay van Garderen and Rohan Dennis in their ranks and will be looking to post a result for the late Andy Rihs, their team owner who died less than a week ago. Porte is the defending champion but his form has been hard to read this year, with illness a factor since his return from Australia. The team still boast one of the strongest line-ups in a race suited to all-rounders.

With Chris Froome enjoying his final training stint before the Giro d'Italia, it's Geraint Thomas who leads the line for Team Sky. The Welshman's Classics campaign was short-lived and devoid of results but he has finished on the podium at the two stage races he has competed in this year and will receive strong support from a team that also contains neo-pros Egan Bernal and Pavel Sivakov. The former is making his return to racing after a superb showing at the Volta a Catalunya was cut short by a crash on the final stage.

The most dangerous rider could be Primoz Roglic. The 28-year-old has only competed in a one-day race on one occasion this season but his stage racing form continues to improve. He won a stage at Tirreno-Adriatico courtesy of an impressive attack on the road to Trevi, and backed up that result with a stage win and the overall in the Basque Country. The LottoNL-Jumbo rider was third last year, and although he would have preferred longer, flatter tests against the clock, there should be few riders for the Slovenian to fear should he turn up with the form he had in the Basque Country.

Due to the mountainous route, and the fact that a third of the stages are raced against the clock, the calibre and depth of sprinters at the race is not at its highest. Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) returns after his injury layoff, and the Colombian will ride alongside Elia Viviani, who won a stage in Romandie last year on the day Team Sky left him out of their Giro team. Michael Matthews has made the trip after a mixed Ardennes campaign, while Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Merida) and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) should also play roles in the sprints.

Stage 1 from Fribourg to Delemont, with its 2,232m of climbing, will almost certainly prove too testing for the pure sprinters who have ventured to Romandie. The likelihood is that the finish will be decided between the GC contenders, their teams, and a handful of resilient all-rounders who can excel at climbing and sprinting from a small group. The four climbs - the last two coming on a finishing circuit - are unlikely to decide the overall standings but the stage will provide an indication of the true contenders.

The queen stage starts and finishes in Sion - where Thibaut Pinot won a stage in 2016 - and comprises five major categorised climbs and over 3,500m of ascents. The first category climb to Ovronnaz comes inside the first 20km, but it's the final 70km when the race will be won or lost. The Ovronnaz peaks out at 8.9km and starts with seven per cent inclines. From there it only steepens, with an 11.5 per cent section in the middle of the climb, which only eases to nine per cent in the final stretches.

Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.