April 28, 2026
The Tour de Romandie is geared towards those who are either just coming off altidude camps and preparing for the Tour or have raced some of the Classics and want one more block before taking a rest. All six days are in the French speaking part of Switzerland and will highlight the quientessential Swiss landscape with mountains, rolling green meadows, and quaint villages tucked in between. Unfortuantely for the race, it has had some financial trouble and does not have a main sponsor. Only 15 teams are lining up but all are World Tour with the exception of the Swiss outfit, Tudor Pro Cycling. The racing should be great nonetheless, particularly because it kicks off with a 3.2 km prologue around Villars-sur-Glâne. The route is not particularly technical but there is a 700 meter ramp at 7% near the finish that will sting the legs at the end of an all-out effort. The sprinters/lead out men are always ones to watch over this distance.
Highlighted Riders for the week:
Tadej Pogačar, Jørgen Nordhagen, Florian Lipowitz, Primož Roglič, Georg Steinhauser, Oscar Onley, Andrew August, Lorenzo Fortunato, Lenny Martinez, David Gaudu, Mauro Schmid, Luke Plapp, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Yannis Voisard, Marco Brenner, Marco Frigo, George Bennett, Jefferson Cepeda
Race Summary
Low cloud was hanging around so many of the favorites decided to go off early to avoid any threat of rain later in the day. Primož Roglič, Mauro Schmid, and Ivo Oliveira all went off in the first 40 riders and each owned the top spot at some point. Dorian Godon of Ineos put them all to shame however by hitting the line a full 6 seconds quicker than Oliveira with an average speed for 53.552 km/hr. Fortunately or unfortunately for Godon, depending on how you look at it, his benchmark was good enough to hold the hot seat for a long time which meant lots of time sitting in a little bean bag type chair, waiting for everyone else to come home.
About halfway through the line up, Godon was still leading and a few rain drops started to appear on the camera lenses. Every rider got through the course to the finish line before the course was wet so the conditions were about the same for all 103 riders, which is the important thing in situations such as this. When Tadej Pogačar of UAE-XRG stopped the clock as the last rider to finish, he was short of Godon's time which gave the Frenchman his fourth win of the season and the first leader's jersey. Jakob Söderqvist of Lidl-Trek was second best on the day at 6 seconds with Oliveira holding on to third, also on 6 seconds.