Chris Froome (Sky) survived today's difficult stage of the Tour de Romandie and heads into tomorrow's decisive time trial with 1 second to make up on overall leader Simon Spilak. After getting safely through another day, the Brit feels confident and strong ahead of the decisive battle.

Chris Froome will go into Sunday’s final day of the Tour de Romandie one second behind leader Simon Spilak after finishing in the peloton on stage four.

The 28-year-old Briton was safely ushered to the finish in Fribourg by his Team Sky team-mates and crossed the line just ahead of his Slovenian rival in the main bunch.

The result means Froome has the narrowest of deficits to overturn on Spilak in the fifth and final stage’s 18.5km time trial around Neuchatel.

Stage four was won by breakaway rider Michael Albasini, of Orica-GreenEdge. The Swiss home favourite had formed part of a five-man escape early in the day and although two of that group were dropped in the closing kilometres, the remaining trio survived all the way to the finish.

Albasini then picked up his third win of the race by comfortably beating Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) into second and Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma - Quick-Step) into third.

Sports director Servais Knaven told teamsky.com after the stage: "The whole team worked for Froomey today to protect his position and they did a really good job.

"It was a hard day, even though it wasn't a GC day. We didn't want to catch the breakaway so it worked out perfectly for us, but it was still very difficult.

"Our focus turns to tomorrow's time trial now. Froomey feels good and confident. He will get a good night's sleep tonight and then he will be ready."

The 174km fourth stage took place over six laps of a rolling circuit starting and finishing in Fribourg, in western Switzerland.