Tour de Romandie Féminin: Lotte Kopecky wins overall as Riejanne Markus nets stage 3 from breakaway

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Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) won the Tour de Romandie Féminin 2024. Riejanne Markus (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the final stage in a sprint à deux against Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime) after a long duo breakaway, while Kopecky finished third, 21 seconds behind.

On the final kilometre, a crash in the last roundabout brought down several riders, including second overall Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), but due to the crash being in the last 3km, they should not lose time in GC.

“The last period wasn’t the easiest one for me, and it was really difficult to come back. I came here hoping that I can go back home with some confidence, and this is definitely what I needed. I am so, so happy,” said Markus after her stage victory.

Kopecky’s teammate Fisher-Black was in the breakaway with Markus for much of the stage, and the world champion said that this had been the team’s plan for the day.

“Good. I mean, today was actually kind of a perfect day for us. We knew we could play Niamh because she is also not that far in GC. It was perfect for us that she was in the break; then the gap came down because other teams started to chase. In the end, it’s sad for her that she could not win, but she rode an amazing race,” said the overall winner.

Despite missing a stage victory, Kopecky takes confidence from a strong three-day performance with the bigger goal of retaining her rainbow jersey still to come later this month.

“I came here to see how my form was, and I am quite happy with where I am at the moment, with the World Championships coming in three weeks. It would have been nice to have a stage victory, but I have the overall victory, and yesterday, Demi won a nice stage, so I think we can’t complain, we should be very happy,” she said.

How it unfolded

The 144.5km final stage started in Morges on the shores of Lake Geneva, consisting of two laps of a rolling circuit before entering a shorter loop with two classified climbs and then returning to Morges for the finish.

On the first lap, Mijntje Geurts (Visma-Lease a Bike), Henrietta Christie (Human Powered Health), Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal), and Hannah Ludwig (Cofidis) formed a breakaway that was soon joined by Vollering, Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM), and Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez). They had only a small advantage and were quickly reeled in again as the other teams considered this break to be too dangerous.

Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won the first intermediate sprint to defend her orange points jersey; the Italian would win the points classification in the end, five points ahead of Kopecky. Kopecky, on the other hand, won the first QOM sprint of the day, adding to her advantage and taking home the light-blue mountain jersey.

Soon after, Fisher-Black and Majerus went away and gradually increased their advantage to four minutes, putting Fisher-Black in the virtual leader’s jersey. Eventually, Movistar Team and Liv-AlUla-Jayco took up the chase, reducing the gap to 1:50 minutes at the top of the last categorised climb, the Signal de Bougy, with 33km to go.

Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) launched a fierce attack from the peloton on an unclassified climb 21km from the finish; she was followed by Kopecky, Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Noemi Rüegg (Switzerland), and Élise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM). Eleonora Gasparrini (UAE Team ADQ), Vollering, and Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) bridged to the quintet where Smulders attacked, and Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) also made it across, immediately following Gasparrini’s counter.

Things came back together as nobody wanted to press on, but this action had reduced the front duo’s advantage to under a minute. Nienke Vinke (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) made a move and quickly got a gap, and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) went on the chase behind her.

The two solo chasers were reeled in by the peloton with 11km to go, and Fisher-Black and Markus had increased their gap a little bit again to 1:05 minutes.

This fell to 50 seconds at the 5km mark and 34 seconds with 2km to go, but the two escapees would sprint for the stage. Fisher-Black led onto the final kilometre, still trying to maximise her time gain in a bid to move onto the GC podium, and Markus could launch her sprint from the New Zealander’s wheel 200 metres from the line.

The Dutchwoman quickly took the lead and sat up to celebrate, but as Fisher-Black was coming back from behind, Markus went down into the handlebars for two more pedal strokes to the finish line before celebrating her victory.

In the peloton, there was a crash in the final roundabout with 400 metres to go: Vollering, GC third place and best U25 rider Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek), Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal), Cédrine Kerbaol, Alice Maria Arzuffi (both Ceratizit-WNT), Nienke Vinke (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Erica Magnaldi (UAE Team ADQ), and Dygert went down, but they were all able to finish. Due to the crash, everybody in the peloton was given the time of Kopecky, neutralising any time gaps at the finish.

Fisher-Black missed the GC podium by five seconds but was awarded the stage 3 combativity prize, and SD Worx-Protime also won the team classification. Rüegg was the best Swiss rider.

Results

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