INEOS Grenadiers were once the team to beat in most stage-races and the superpower of professional road cycling. Nowadays, the team fights to be at the top, but it will likely win it's first World Tour overall classification since the 2022 Tour de Pologne; as Carlos Rodríguez climbed his way into yellow at the Tour de Romandie.
"I am very happy, but super proud of the effort of the entire team, during the entire stage. We didn't know how things would turn out, but the team believed in me," the Spaniard said in a post-race interview with Eurosport. "I am happy with that trust and that I was ultimately able to deliver with a good result. It's not over yet, we have to fight another day. I'm going to do everything I can to keep this jersey." This was the fruit of an all-day work from INEOS, which saw all of it's riders pace throughout the day to prepare an attack on the final climb.
With Thymen Arensman and Egan Bernal then setting him up, Rodríguez responded to an attack of Florian Lipowitz which saw Juan Ayuso crack on the slopes of Leysin. Rodríguez rode to third on the day, not prioritizing the stage win, but he moved into the yellow jersey with an impressive feat of consistency. He leads BORA - hansgrohe duo Aleksandr Vlasov and Florian Lipowitz by 7 and 9 seconds into tomorrow's final stage; and it is his race to lose as it does not feature any major climbs.
"We can't relax yet, we will only do that after Sunday's stage," Rodríguez added, not celebrating yet his success. "Hopefully we can celebrate something then. Winning the Tour de Romandie would be great. I've won several times, but never a classification That would be very important for me, to achieve that."
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