Martin Kohler won his first ever jersey in a big bike race when he secured the win in the sprints competition at the Tour de Romandie. The victory came as a small consolation prize for the BMC team in a very unfortunate race as they lost both Tejay van Garderen and Peter Velits due to crashes.

Martin Kohler of the BMC Racing Team captured the PMU sprint competition Sunday at the Tour de Romandie to earn the first jersey classification of his professional career. 

Kohler first donned the green jersey Thursday after being part of a two-man breakaway on Stage 2 that spent nearly 160 kilometers in the lead, only to be caught with three to go. He held onto it through Sunday's 18.5-km individual time trial that capped the six-day race.

"I know it is not a stage victory or the most important thing, but to win something in my home country is nice," the past Swiss national road and time trial champion said. "The whole week we had a bit of bad luck, but at least in the end we have something to get on the podium."

BMC Racing Team's Peter Velits, the Slovakian national time trial champion, did not start Sunday's stage after crashing on Saturday. The BMC Racing Team also saw Tejay van Garderen withdraw Friday to recover from a crash during Tuesday's prologue.

Chris Froome (Team Sky) won the time trial by one second over world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) to win the race overall by 28 seconds ahead of Simon Spilak (Katusha Team). World road champion Rui Costa was third, 1:32 back.

Kohler, in 56th, was best for the BMC Racing Team in the time trial and Darwin Atapuma was best-placed (18th) for the team in the final standings.