IAM Cycling again showed its strength on the queen stage of the Tour of Romandie, which was won by Simon Spilak (Katusha).  The Swiss Pro Continental team sparkled throughout, with Mathias Frank coming away in 6th place on the stage, followed closely by teammates Marcel Wyss in 11th and Sébastien Reichenbach in 14th.  Not only that, but Johann Tschopp (27th place) defended the king of the mountains jersey and IAM Cycling moved into 2nd place in the team standings just 49 seconds behind Movistar.

 

When evaluating his day, Mathias Frank, who now moves into 5th place overall, made certain to thank his teammates for their support. 

 

“First and foremost, I have to take my hat off to the team.  I did not have great legs to start off the day.  And all the guys pulled together to help me get through the first few climbs which we took at a very fast tempo. 

 

"As the kilometers passed, I began to feel better and so I tried to attack at the Villars climb.  I gave it everything I had, and will continue to make the same effort until Sunday.  I have designs on the Tour of Romandie podium, even though the guys who are ahead of me on the classification are also pretty certain to be good bets on this terrain.”

 

Smiling despite the hard effort of the day, Marcel Wyss regretted that his fall on the descent from Lens during the first stage keeps him out of overall contention now. 

 

“Today I felt really good.  We played our game perfectly for Mathias, and if I hadn’t crashed on Wednesday, I’m sure I would be up there too.  Nevertheless, this 11th place is a good balm to my morale because I really worked hard preparing for this race.” 

 

As for Sébastien Reichenbach, he was keen to emphasis the hard work of the day. 

 

“We did not really take a breath the whole stage.  FDJ pushed the pace on the first climb and the rhythm just increased as the kilometers wore on.  Johann Tschopp put in a dig on the Giettes to defend his climber’s jersey.  And looking at Mathias’ 6th place, Marcel’s 11th place and my 14th place on the stage, it can be described as a good day.”