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Saturday, April 27, 2024

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2023 Tour de France | 2023 Giro d'Italia

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. - Francis Bacon

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Bill & Carol McGann's book The Story of the Tour de France, 2020: The Tour During Covid-19, Better Late Than Never is available in both Kindle eBook and Audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

Current racing:

• April 21 - 28: Tour of Turkey
• April 23 - 28: Tour de Romandie
• April 26 - 28: Vuelta Asturias

Upcoming racing:

• May 1: Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt
• May 4: GP du Morbihan
• May 4 - 26: Giro d'Italia

Latest completed racing:

• April 21: Liège-Bastogne-Liège
• April 15 - 19: Tour of the Alps
• April 17: La Flèche Wallone
• April 14: Amstel Gold Race
• April 14: Tour du Doubs
• April 10: De Brabantse Pijl
• April 7: Paris-Roubaix

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Tour de Romandie stage three reports

We posted the report from stage winner Brandon McNulty's UAE Team Emirates with the results.

Here's the report from second-place Magnus Sheffield's Team INEOS Grenadiers:

Magnus Sheffield delivered an impressive performance on his time trial bike to claim second place in a soaking stage three at the Tour De Romandie.

Magnus Sheffield riding to second place.

The American performed admirably in increasingly slick conditions on a hilly course, with several technical elements to negotiate. He crossed the line thirteen seconds back on stage winner Brandon McNulty (UAE - Team Emirates).

The Grenadiers placed three riders in the top 11, with Carlos Rodriguez coming home in seventh, and Thymen Arensman placing 11th. The Spaniard's strong ride sees him vault up to fourth on GC, with two stages remaining.

Here's the report from Ilan Van Wilder's Team Soudal Quick-Step:

Ilan Van Wilder continued to move up in the general classification of the Tour de Romandie, this time after a great ride in the 15.5km individual time trial held around Oron. Fourth overall at the start of the day, Ilan was among the last to roll down the ramp and had to face challenging conditions due to the rain that appeared in the final hour of the stage, complicating things and slowing down the GC contenders.

Ilan Van Wilder turning in a strong ride. Photo: Getty Sport

Despite the slippery roads and tricky corners and descents, Van Wilder managed to put together a good time trial, averaging over 45km/h and stopping the clock in 30:20, a result that helped him take top ten on the stage won by Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates). The ITT, despite being relatively short, gave the general classification a meaningful shake-up, and Ilan was among those who benefitted from this, moving to second with two stages remaining.

“The parcours was nice, but unfortunately the rain made it difficult out there, so I couldn’t go full gas in the corners. I tried to keep the speed as high as possible in between, but with the wind picking up, it wasn’t easy at all. In the end, I did a good ride, which is a nice confidence-boost ahead of Saturday’s hard mountain stage”, Ilan said after the finish.

Here’s the Romandie Tour report Lenny Martinez's Team Groupama-FDJ:

On Friday, the individual time trial in Oron created the first real gaps of the 2024 Tour de Romandie. In this third stage, the favorites did not benefit from the same weather conditions of the day’s winner, Brandon McNulty, but still put in a great fight against the clock. Lenny Martinez performed very well and took sixteenth place, which put him in fifth position overall, twenty-three seconds behind the new leader Juan Ayuso. On Saturday, 3,500 meters of elevation gain are on the riders’ menu towards the summit finish in Leysin.

Lenny Martinez on his way finishing sixteenth.

In the aftermath of a first summit finish without any major moves, the GC leaders had to leave everything on the road this Friday on the Tour de Romandie. Around Oron, the 15.5-kilometer time trial was set to be a crucial stage and the terrain was ideal for a great battle. “It was really a very nice route,” explained Nicolas Boisson. “We started straight away with a nice climb (1.8 km at 6.5%). The second part was also challenging, with small hills which were still quite painful. Finally, there were two nice descents which were made more technical than what we had seen at the recon on Monday due to the weather.”

While the first two thirds of the riders were able to tackle the track on a dry road, the rain came a little later. Thibaud Gruel and Enzo Paleni delivered solid performances before the weather turned bad, then the GC riders began to set off around 4:30 p.m. David Gaudu took the start at 4:43 p.m. and finished twenty-one minutes and forty-four seconds later, 1’37 behind McNulty. “He immediately felt on the rollers that he didn’t have the best legs,” said Nicolas. “I told him to ignore it and that the feelings on the road could be different. But from the bottom of the climb, after 500 metres, he felt that it was going to be a hard day for him. Unfortunately, it was”.

Lenny Martinez tackled the course a few moments later, with much better feelings. This allowed him to enter the top-15 at the intermediate time check, and then to grab 16th place at the finish, 44 seconds behind McNulty but only 24 behind the best of his GC rivals, Juan Ayuso. “I’m happy with my time trial,” said the young man. “The effort was practically over before the last downhill, then it was mainly controlling the bike and not losing too much speed. We also had to think about the weekend and not take all the risks.”

“Lenny did a good time trial,” confirmed Nicolas. “We were very satisfied at the time check, then he managed the descent well. It’s a good sixteenth place, just like last year right here in Romandie. It’s always good to make it into the top-20 of a WorldTour time trial. It could have been better if everyone had the same conditions, but the goal was above all to be close to the favorites, which Lenny managed to do. This bodes well for tomorrow.” Thanks to his performance, the French climber moved up to fifth position overall, just twenty-three seconds behind Ayuso. “He’s on target, everything remains possible,” added Nicolas. “Tomorrow’s stage is hard on paper, but we’ll have to see how the race develops. We asked the other riders to go easy on the time trial today because we will need them tomorrow. The team really has good momentum this week and is motivated to finish this Tour de Romandie well.”

And here’s the Romandie Tour report from Team Visma | Lease a Bike:

Team Visma | Lease a Bike failed to get a good result in the time trial at the Tour de Romandie. On the slightly uphill course the men of the yellow-black formation did not come close to the time of Brandon McNulty, who with 20.06 was a class apart.

The ultra-short prologue on Tuesday was followed today by a 15 kilometer individual time trial through the streets of Oron. Bart Lemmen took the start on behalf of Team Visma | Lease a Bike and did not do so unsympathetically. Koen Bouwman, Johannes Staune-Mittet and Jan Tratnik came into action a little later and all three took exactly the same amount of time in their time trial. With a time of 21.06, they all finished in the top thirty.

Jan Tratnik riding to 30th place. Sirotti photo

"In terms of results, we might have expected a bit more, but the men did their best. Certainly Koen, Johannes and Jan rode the time trial properly," explained team manager Grischa Niermann. "A time trial is always fair and this is where we are at the moment. Yesterday we saw that we were not competing with the very best and today it was the same again. That is not a bad thing because we are here to prepare for the Giro."

Tomorrow the fourth stage is on the program and it is also the queen stage of the Tour de Romandie. With five categorized climbs and an uphill finish, it promises to be a battle between the classification riders. "We will see what is possible from the breakaway, although I don't expect the attackers to get much space. Either way we are going to do our best to get a nice result."

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