27/04/2024

Tour de Romandie: Richard Carapaz wins queen stage in style as Juan Ayuso explodes in the yellow jersey; Carlos Rodríguez the new reace leader

The Tour de Romandie was flipped on it's head in the queen stage! Juan Ayuso and UAE Team Emirates lost the yellow jersey to Carlos Rodríguez in the final climb; whilst Richard Carapaz took an impressive stage win in Leysin, the finale of stage 4.

The queen stage of the race had a flat start, and within this section the breakaway of the day was formed. KOM classification leader Juri Hollmann, Dorian Godon, Raúl García Pierna, Nelson Oliveira, Bart Lemmen and Josef Cerny made a move and gathered a few minutes of lead in the head of the race. Clément Berthet joined the group with a move on the first main climb of the day.

Berthet knew the day well, and later on in a sequence of climbs, put on a hard pace and managed to drop all of his breakaway companions in this tough section of the day. INEOS Grenadiers paced in the peloton, keeping a high rhythm all afternoon in order to set an attack in the final climb.

Berthet maintained a long solo move throughout over an hour, INEOS kept the pace stable in the run-up to the ascent and also the first half of the final climb. It was with 6 kilometers to go that Thymen Arensman picked up the pace and began to put on a pace that split the group quite a lot. The likes of Lenny Martínez got dropped, with Egan Bernal launching an attack. Juan Ayuso showed some weakness and Carlos Rodríguez jumped to the wheel of of Bernal and maintained a high pace.

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Bernal kept the pace high until 3 kilometers to go, this race's breakthrough rider Florian Lipowitz attacked followed by Richard Carapaz and Carlos Rodríguez. Ayuso was dropped, and completely cracked in the following minutes of race, getting dropped by several groups as he sank in the yellow jersey.

Rodríguez had the yellow jersey in sights and so paced the front group. Richard Carapaz did not just want to follow in the wheel however, attacking explosively with 2.2 kilometers to go and immediately getting a gap that he would carry all the way to the finish - his biggest win in his years.

Lipowitz launched a move in the final 300 meters, bridging across to Carapaz but just missing out on the win. Carlos Rodríguez finished third and took the race lead, as Juan Ayuso lost 45 seconds at the finish line.