Clément Berthet's solo attack is not rewarded with a result: "We played our card to win the stage and we can't have too many regrets"

Despite not having a top climber in their Tour de Romandie lineup, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale didn't give up the ambitions to fight for the stage win. The first important step was putting a rider in the early move. Dorian Godon, winner of the first stage took on this role. Afterwards, it was up to Clément Berthet, who attacked from the peloton over the first classified climb, with more than 100km to go.

The peloton never allowed Berthet to built a significant advantage, thus the only award for his efforts comes in form of the combativeness prize. "We planned to be on the offensive today and it started well with Dorian who was in the initial breakaway," Berthet begins explaining the strategy to Eurosport.

"INEOS climbed the first pass of the day very quickly, I managed to hold on to the group of favorites, there were only around fifteen of us left at the top. We caught Dorian again just at the summit, the breakaway had not much lead left, and we took advantage of the descent to attack again."

"Dorian did a great job to bring me back to the front, he had some big stints in the valley and I then set my pace when we arrived to the difficult sections. It's a bit of a shame to have rode alone, with these rather shallow slopes and not really favorable wind. I didn't hold up too badly, but I missed a little. Regrets? I think I had the legs to do something on the pedals, a top 10 was perhaps possible, but we played our card to win the stage and we can't have too many regrets," he concludes his story.