The least prestigious, but not necessarily worst, of the seven small tours
I was not going to write a preview for this race, but I feel it is worthwhile mainly to give some context on the cycling calendar and the hierarchy of races.
The Tour de Romandie is a six-day (considered “one-week”) WorldTour stage race in the Romandie (French-speaking) region in Western Switzerland. Being Switzerland, the topography encompasses large mountains and lakes, including Lake Geneva. The scenery in early spring is spectacular and this alone elevates the race above the status of many others. This is also a race in which the route changes drastically every year, not even having the same traditional final stage every year as many small tours and the Tour de France do.
So what are the seven small tours and what is their hierarchy, and how do they compare to the Grand Tours and Monuments? The small tours are all WorldTour level (which is the highest category of UCI race), around one week in duration (all comprising between six and eight stages. There is no such thing as a two-week stage race.) The small tours contain no rest day, and similar to Grand Tours the general classification is almost always decided on a few stages with mountains, and/or a time trial if included in the route.
In calendar order, the small tours are Paris-Nice, Tirrenno-Adriatico, Volta a Catalunya, Itzulia Basque Country, Tour de Romandie, Criterium du Dauphine, and Tour de Suisse. There are other WorldTour one-week stage races, such as the UAE Tour and the Tour of Poland, but these are understood to be less prestigious due to their lack of history than the small tours.
Even the most dedicated cycling fans (and riders themselves) disagree on the order of prestige of these races, but my ranking goes: 1). Criterium du Dauphine 2). Tour de Suisse 3). Paris-Nice 4). Tirrenno-Adriatico 5). Itzulia Basque Country 6). Volta a Cataluyna 7). Tour de Romandie. This does not necessarily mean that, for example, the Tour de Suisse is always a more difficult course or harder to win than Catalunya, just that it historically has been a more important race.
Historically, one-week stage races tended to serve a purpose for the bigger riders, rather than being goals in and of themselves. Dauphine and Suisse are ancient Tour de France preparation races. Itzulia is a warm-up for the Ardennes Classics. Tirrenn0 and Paris-Nice are preparation for the Cobbled Classics. Romandie; a Giro d’Italia training race. Catalunya is a bit of an oddball due to its placement in late March, but it could be used for the Giro, or many different classics goals. For example, the two heavy favorites for the Giro this year, Remco and Roglic, dominated the 2023 Catalunya.
However, in the past few seasons, it has required even the top riders to be at 98 percent or better to win the “preparation” races. Lesser riders who are still really strong and teams and sponsors are all desperate to win and get UCI points for high placements, so they are sending strong teams to these traditionally less-important races, and the less strong rider are arriving in top form. In many ways, it is actually more difficult to win a stage or Paris-Nice than it is the Giro d’Italia, though the latter is orders of magnitude more important for one’s career. The level in Paris-Nice is always quite high, and this year the two best GC riders on earth (Pogacar and Vingegaard) showed up, and they will not take part in the Giro.
But even more important is the dynamic of the race. In one-week races, breakaways rarely succeed because the teams of the strongest riders are motivated to chase them. The stages tend to be a bit shorter and less hard than in Grand Tours, which allows teams to control breakaways and their GC rider to try to win the stage. It is also a more recent phenomenon that many of the top GC riders pack a strong sprint and like to go for bonus seconds (which are awarded to first, second, and third place on the stage). So lesser riders who need to get lucky in breakaways have almost no chance in small tours.
That being said, no big GC rider commences his season with the target being the Tour de Suisse, let alone the Tour de Romandie. Every single top GC rider targets either the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia and builds the rest of their early season and their training program around that (the Vuelta a Espana is usually seen as a back-up for a failed attempt at the Giro or Tour. That’s why the crash-prone heartbreak king Roglic has won it three times). For galacticos like Pog and Rog, there is little to be gained from a victory in the Dauphine. It’s not nothing, but these guys would trade three or five Dauphines for a Tour. As much as the racing in these small tours is usually pretty spectacular and the watts/kg can be astronomical, the Grand Tours are just far, far more important.
Okay, so now that I’ve properly denigrated the Tour de Romandie, I want to balance it out by saying that I like this year’s route. There are two TTs, which is unusual in a small tour, and should have attracted some stronger rouleurs (time trialists, flat specialists) to the race. I don’t know why they did not just have one and make it longer, but I digress. The queen stage is absolutely brutal and contains a 21km climb to altitude at almost 8 percent average grade. There’s one rather hilly sprint stage. Then, there are a couple misc stages that could go to a punchy GC rider or the break.
The GC field contains nobody preparing for the Giro, which is unusual. But it is a reasonable list of contenders: the Yates brothers, Sergio Higuita, Louis Meintjes, Thibaut Pinot, Matteo Jorgensen, Steven Kruijswick?(if he rides for GC) Alexey Lutsenko, Michael Woods, Ion Izagirre, Lenny Martinez, Romain Bardet, and Tobias Foss are the main men I see.
The Yates brothers are the only riders on the startlist who are capable of putting it to the big four GC riders (Pog, Rog, Jonas, and Remco) in small tours. As such, they are big favorites to dominate on the mountaintop finish (MTF). I think Simon tends to be better in the TT, but Adam has looked in better form so far this season. Unfortunately, we have not seen him race since a heavy crash in Catalunya.
The best TTer of the GC men is Foss, who shockingly won the World Championship last year in a strange result. But he will drop heavily on Thyon 2000 (the MTF) and be out of contention.
I like Lenny Martinez, who is 19 years old, to perform well. I’ll say he takes seventh place. I assume that, being a skinny Frenchman, he is a poor TTer and will ship time. But he will gain some back on Thyon 2000.
The sprint field is weak as usual due to lack of opportunities. In the misc/sprint stages, I’ll take Magnus Court to win two stages and Ethan Hayter to win the other.
The first TT will be won by Ethan Hayter, and the second by American Matteo Jorgensen. But Thyon 2000 is way too hard for him, so he probably will not top ten GC. Hopefully, he proves me wrong.
My pick for the final podium is Sergio Higuita in third, Adam Yates in second, and Simon Yates taking a much-needed victory.
Puncheur 
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