Romain Grégoire wins chaotic stage 1 at Tour de Suisse whilst Ben O'Connor gains massive time on GC rivals

Stage 1 of the Tour de Suisse has been won by Romain Grégoire. The Frenchman has taken advantage of massive and dangerous breakaway that went up the road early on to bring Groupama - FDJ another stage win and the first yellow jersey of the race.

The first stage of the race was heavily marked by the rain that fell from early on and quickly began to aid in the formation of chaos. In front we had a group consisting of around 30 riders including GC contenders such as Pello Bilbao, Ben O'Connor, Pablo Castrillo and more.

An extremely dangerous group and one that wouldn't be brought back, simply there were too many riders and teams interested in front and not much firepower behind to bring things back. The overall classification has been affected quite significantly because of this, with some of the men above gaining serious time ahead of what would on paper be the key stages of the race.

Julian Alaphilippe attacked inside the final climb already however it was Bart Lemmen's acceleration that really split the group to bits, with the pure climbers not being able to make the difference. He was followed by three Frenchman: Alaphilippe, Romain Grégoire and Kévin Vauquelin. In the wet and technical descent Grégoire took risks and got a gap over the rest.

The Groupama - FDJ rider would take full advantage of this attack to go on and win another stage this year, in style by himself and jumping into the yellow jersey - whilst also placing himself as a serious contender to win the race. Kévin Vauquelin sprinted to second followed by Lemmen.