Knowing that he will have little chance against the more versatile riders in the final time trial, Thibaut Pinot asked his teammates to make today's queen stage of the Tour de Romandie brutally hard. All was looking bright for the Frenchman until Rafal Majka brought him down in a crash on the final climb.

With the final time trial set to be decisive, this year's course for the Tour de Romandie is definitely not suited to a pure climber like Thibaut PInot but the Frenchman refuses to go down without a fight. Knowing that he needed to gain time ahead of Sunday's showdown, his FDJ team rode a hard tempo on the front all day and made the stage a tough affair for his rivals.

Pinot was unable to follow Chris Froome and Simon Spilak on the final climb but seemed to be one of the strongest in the second chase group when disaster struck. Rafal Majka went down in a crash and Pinot had nowhere to go, hitting the deck just a few kilometres from the top of the final climb.

"It was never possible for us not to take this race on," sport director Yvon Madiot said. "We wanted to avoid that 80 riders arrived at the finish together. So we took our responsibilities, we made the race from the first climb, the Col des Planche, which was the hardest. Kenny Elissonde and Francis Mourey Elissonde shared the work and blew the peloton apart.

"At the bottom of the third climb, after a long stretch of valley roads, the field contained 60 riders and Kenny gave it his all. We made a lot of rivals blow up, including Kwiatkowski and Albasini, the yellow jersey.

"At the top, there were 28 riders left and Thibaut Pinot had good legs. In the last climb, there was a fight. Froome attacked and was joined by Spilak. At 40 seconds, Nibali, Frank and Intxausti were about to be joined by Thibaut's group, just before the summit, when at a railroad crossing Majka crashed right in front of Thibaut who went over his bike. He was quickly back in the race but had to change bikes a little further up the road.

"At the top, he was 50 seconds behind his group and was caught by Talansky, Izaguirre, the Spanish champion Jose Herrada and Marcel Wyss. He did a very good race but at the finish, he was ninth, 1'41'' behind Spilak who beat Froome, and 44 seconds behind the Nibali group. 

"It's frustrating! Really, we're all disappointed, very disappointed. We have really no luck. The team really did a great race and we lost a lot due to a twist of fate. Now we will fight for the Top 10."