Chris Froome (Sky) defended his overall lead in today's first stage of the Tour de Romandie as his team kept the peloton firmly under control throughout the stage. The Brit was happy to come through the day unscathed and enjoyed the possibility to keep learning how to lead a major race.

After Chris Froome's dominant victory in yesterday's Tour de Romandie prologue, today's stage was not expected to be crucial for the GC and so the Brit's major only objective was to get safely through the day.  His Sky team controlled the day's early break perfectly all day as Josh Edmondson and Gabriel Rasch plenty of work throughout the day.

On the day's final climb attacks started to go off and a dangerous situation arose whena group with the likes of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Simon Spilak (Katusha) went clear. However, Sky kept their calm and Vasil Kiryienka and Peter Kennaugh caught the move before the gap became threatening.

Froome was impressed by his team's tremendous work.

“It was a good solid start from the team today," he said. "We started off in total control of the race. Even when the attacks came on the final climbs the guys just stayed calm and we all stayed together. Josh in particular and Gabba (Rasch, ed.) spent a lot of time on the front today. That was fantastic and the team rode really well."

The final run-in to the line was dangerous as the climbs had not been hard enough to reduce the size of the peloton by much and so there were plenty of sprinters battling for position. However, Froome managed to come through unscathed and he enjoys being in the lead of a stage race for the third time this year as it is good practice ahead of his major goal of the Tour de France in which he hopes to find himself in a similar position.

“There was a lot of road furniture coming into the finish," he said. "The sprinter teams took it up coming into the final. The main thing for us was just to stay out of harm’s way and save the legs for what is coming up. It’s really good to be in this position and getting used to being in this position now going forward.”

Sports director Servais Knaven was also impressed by another display of Sky's impressive strength.

“The guys controlled things really well," he said. "Gabba and Josh rode for 120km and Josh was still with them in the peloton at the end. Everything was under control and perfect.

"Other riders started attacking towards the final but the team took it in their stride and covered everything. It was still a long way to the finish but the guys are strong so it was about not panicking and making sure we stayed together. That’s what we did."

The team's has a sprinter in their line-up as Chris Sutton is also in Switzerland these days. The Australian tried to contest the sprint but as stage wins are not the team's objective he was left to fight for himself and he was unable to challenge stage winner Gianni Meersman (Omega Pharma-Quick Step).

“CJ (Sutton, ed.) went for the sprint but he was on his own and got a bit blocked in," Knaven said. "We knew it was always going to be difficult for him without support. Luckily we came through without any crashes and flat tyres. It was a good day but we’ve got three hard days to come.”

Starting at 16.00 you can follow tomorrow's stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.