Tour de Romandie 2025 Stage 4

May 3, 2025 There is no doubt that this is the Queen Stage of this year's race. It is only 128KM from Sion to Thyon 2000 but the riders will have to navigate over nearly 4,200M of climbing to get there. It's hard to imagine how to fit that much elevation into so few racing kilometers but with next to no valley roads between climbs, it is constantly going up or going down. Out of the gate, the riders go up Anzère, a 14KM climb at almost 7%. A shorter climb waits halfway down the descent before heading to the valley floor in Saint-Léonard. The next climb to Nax, an 11.5KM climb at 6.8%, cruelly has almost no descent, just around 1500M before going up to Suen for another 5.7KM at 5%. They descend back into Sion where the race started to take on the mammoth 20KM, 7.7% climb up to Thyon 2000 for the finish at almost 2,100M above sea level. Fortunately temperatures were near 20C (68F) because rain had come down overnight and into the morning. There were plenty of rain jackets and gillets on show, white socks did not stand a chance. Julien Bernard of Lidl-Trek, Louis Barré of Intermarché-Wanty, and Ben Zwiehoff of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe went up the road in the early break. Zwiehoff took the Mountains Points along the way and had that competition sealed by the top of Anzère. The three leaders had 2 minutes 10 seconds halfway up to Nax with 59KM to go with UAE-XRG doing the chasing. The break started the short descent after Nax with 52KM to go which was made very difficult with the mix of wet and dry roads. They began Suen still with 2 minutes 10 seconds but had 30 seconds cut by the top as they started the downhill run to Vex and the valley floor. Zwiehoff had completed his mission for the day and was reabsorbed into the peloton with 31KM to go. The road kicked up to start the climb of Thyon 2000 with 21KM to go. Bernard was solo with 4KM later with a gap of 55 seconds back to the peloton now led by Lotto. The climb was so long that many teams were saving their resources and waiting for further up the mountain. Race leader Alex Baudin was dropped with around 15KM to the finish and Bernard was caught 1500M later as Lotto continued to enforce their pace on the bunch for Lennert Van Eetvelt. Bahrain-Victorious went to work with 9KM to go and it wasn't long before bigger names started to struggle. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep and his teammate William Junior Lecerf, who was sitting third overall at the start of the day, were getting distanced and officially dropped with 8KM to go. João Almeida of UAE-XRG started pulling with 8KM to go and immediately cut the group to around 15 riders. Jay Vine of UAE-XRG stretched his legs and only Lenny Martinez of Bahrain-Victorious, Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek, Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana, Cristián Rodríguez of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Almeida were able to stay with him. With 6KM to go, Fortunato and Martinez were locked in a UAE-XRG sandwich with Vine and Almeida as the others were distanced. Vine set the pace until 4KM to go when Almeida attacked but Martinez was on him right away. Almeida and Martinez were playing games with who would pull but each did their turns to keep themselves out front. With 2KM to go, Vine and Fortunato were joined by Carlos Rodríguez of Ineos and the trio were 30 seconds behind Almeida and Martinez. Almeida led through the final kilometer until 200M when Martinez went for his sprint. The road was still a good drag up but Martinez went through the final sharp corner at 100M to go first. He opened up out of the corner but Almeida was still there. They went for the line together and it was Martinez who had the edge by half a bike length on Almeida to take the win. Fortunato came in 29 seconds later for third place with Vine and Carlos Rodríguez together, two seconds later. With the time bonuses on the line, Martinez takes over the GC by just 2 seconds on Fortunato and 3 seconds on Almeida. Vine sits fourth at 32 seconds and with the ITT tomorrow in Genève, the overall is still wide open.