Rui Costa (Movistar) claimed his second consecutive podium in the Tour de Romandie on Sunday after a fine TT amongst the top guns and thus helped elevate Movistar to third in the WorldTour standings before the Giro d’Italia which begins this Saturday.

The Portuguese rider claimed 12th in the 18.7 km time trial on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, as World Champion Tony Martin (OPQ) notched up yet another win this season.

Costa almost mirrored the times of his rivals, both at the intermediate point and at the finish, and secured the third place of the coveted podium behind Chris Froome (Sky) and Simon Spilak (Katusha) and barely five seconds over Tom Danielson (Garmin-Sharp) and fourteen seconds ahead of Wilco Kelderman (Blanco).

"I'm really satisfied with this second consecutive podium,” Costa explained later on the Movistar website. “We knew it was certainly hard to be on top of the overall, with Froome the strongest in the mountains and more than a decent time trialist, but there were two podium places up for grabs. It was sad to lose the chance to be second yesterday [Saturday] with Spilak at the front, but it was a really hard stage and there wasn't any cooperation at all in the pursuit group. Alejandro [Valverde] and I always spoke a lot within ourselves and we weren’t feeling so well, so we couldn't really get any further yesterday. I think we achieved a reasonable goal yesterday. This podium was possible thanks to all team members - they committed to us all week and their work was really important. Switzerland keeps bringing me good results. I don't know if it's due to the big Portuguese community leaving here and cheering for me on these roads - the really important thing is that I'm achieving good results in many races. I wasn't really expecting to make it into the best three here, though I gained confidence after doing a good race in Liège. Now I'll be taking a week's rest before starting my build-up to the Tour, with my mind on defending the Tour de Suisse title. That will probably be the only race I'll take part in before the Tour [de France]."