For Team Giant-Shimano, yesterday's queen stage of the Tour de Romandie was a day of survival. So far the team has not had any spriting success in the Swiss race and so they have set their sights on today's stage with sprinters Marcel Kittel and Luka Mezgec.

Stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie was the queen stage of the race with four first category climbs to tackle over the 180km parcours. Team Giant-Shimano were keen to get in the early move of the day and it was Tom Veelers who made the eight man move.

The team were extra motivated to perform on Ride Like King day, a global celebration of Giant founder, King Liu and his passion for cycling. This motivation was not dampened by the damp weather facing the riders either.

As the race hit the climbs the race soon started to break up and with a high pace back in the peloton the break was not hanging about and soon started to split. Veelers found himself struggling to hold on as the road went up and up and slipped off the back, eventually being swallowed up by the chase group.

The peloton itself was also splitting to pieces and come the final climb there was only a few riders left as Chris Froome (Sky) and Simon Spilak (Katusha) broke away and maintained their advantage down the other side to the finish in Aigle. It was Spilak who was fastest to the line, just beating Froome and taking the overall lead in doing so.

Georg Preidler was the first rider home for the team, in 39th place, over 12-minutes behind the leaders.

“Georg and Tobias [Ludvigsson] tried to hang on as long as possibble to the front group and looked strong but the pace was very high,” said Team Giant-Shimano coach Lionel Marie. “Marcel felt good again today and we will try for a bunch sprint tomorrow as this is our only chance now after missing out yesterday. There is around 2000m of climbing to do tomorrow but it is based on a circuit so this should prove a bit easier to control.

“Tom looked good today in the break and was never caught by the groupetto at the end, so he gauged his effort well. All in all another promising performance.”