Romandie Recap

Most of my predictions went by the wayside, but it was fairly entertaining

Prologue: Josef Cerny of the Czech Republic and Quick-Step took a surprise victory. Second place went to Tobias Foss by less than one second, and third to Remi Cavagna. Mike Woods was the GC guy who lost significant time: 48 seconds to the stage winner. There were not many huge gaps aside from that.

Stage 1: Despite the climbs, this one ended in a sprint, albeit a weird one. Ethan Vernon of Quick-Step took the victory. Romain Bardet somehow found himself in fourth and beat a plethora of sprinters. I have yet to figure that one out.

Stage 2: Same general format as the previous day, won in another sprint by another British Ethan, this time Hayter. Juan Ayuso, who I somehow forgot to mention in my preview, kicked to second for bonus seconds and Bardet got third.

Stage 3 (ITT): Ayuso took his first WorldTour victory after podiuming the Vuelta last year at age 19. He took five seconds out of Matteo Jorgensen and 17 out of Adam Yates. Some second-tier favorites lost a bit more time, but the MTF the next day offered chances to gain it back. Ayuso earned the leader’s jersey going into Thyon 2000.

Stage 4: The Queen Stage proved decisive as Adam Yates stormed to victory, Ayuso dropped heavily, and Thibaut Pinot showed he still has class, attacking to second place and nearly catching Yates in the final few kilometers. Damiano Caruso took third on the stage. The top ten aside from these three was littered with young riders, especially Anglophone talent. Matteo Jorgensen shocked me and rode to fifth place and second on GC.

Stage 5: Tom Gloag, a 21-year-old British rider for Jumbo-Visma, was sitting two minutes down on GC going into the stage. He went into a small breakaway and built a lead of four minutes before UAE (Yates’ team) started chasing. They controlled it well and the sprint teams soon took it up and caught the break fairly early. The stage ended in a bunch sprint, though a few of the sprinters (including Vernon) had been dropped on the climbs. Fernando Gaviria took a nice victory in the end, sprinting from 400m out and taking the last, late corner perfectly.

Final GC: 1). Adam Yates 2). Matteo Jorgensen 3). Damiano Caruso

Thoughts:

Jorgensen is probably the biggest story of the race. You don’t see many 23-year-old Americans podiuming WorldTour races. He has had a tremendous season so far, and he’s rumored to be transferring to Jumbo-Visma for next season. I’m unsure if I like that or not. For sure, they can develop him into an even better rider and get him set up with the best equipment. But he will be pretty far down on the pecking order there and may not get many chances to ride for himself. It remains to be seen what kind of rider he will turn into, or if he will just continue to do it all.

It’s great to see Egan Bernal ride to eighth on Thyon 2000 and in the final GC and do some nice pulls in the peloton for Hayter. He’s getting back towards his top form (and if w/kg calculations for that MTF are correct, he’s already there) and should ride the Vuelta this year. I don’t expect him to win another Grand Tour as the level is simply far, far, higher than when he won the TdF in 2019, but he can ride for stages and/or the podium.

Pinot is looking great for his final Giro d’Italia. I think he should go for stages because the podium is probably out of reach. His form is good enough to do well in breakaways.

Young talent seems ubiquitous in the WorldTour these days: In this race alone, Max Poole, Tom Gloag, Cian Uijtdebroeks all finished in the top ten. A lot of these guys actually show out better on these longer climbs because they have not learned positioning/tactics as well as more experienced riders, but their watts/kg is almost as good as Yates. Many of them are tiny and don’t push huge watts on the flats. This makes it tough to win races as the TT is their kryptonite, and you have to be (by far) the best climber in the race to win. Maybe one of these guys can turn into a Grand Tour winner, but the odds are still stacked against them all. As good as they are, I’m less on their hype train because Ayuso is already better, can sprint, and clearly TT, and even if he does not pan out, Remco is 23, Pogacar is 24, and there is always Magnus Sheffield, who is 21.

There were a number of high-profile DNFs, including Sergio Higuita, Alexey Lutsenko, and Simon Yates. COVID and other illnesses tend to run rampant through the peloton at this time of year, so this is not altogether too surprising. Simon is a top rider who simply has not looked in great form this year; I wonder if he has been sick all season. Hopefully, he comes good for the Tour de France.

Next up the Giro d’Italia.