Chris Froome defended his third place on the overall standings at the Tour de Romandie after Michael Albasini made it two wins from two in Porrentruy. Froome was well marshaled throughout a tough 172.5km trek from Moutier, and crossed the line in 15th position once Albasini had sprinted to a comfortable victory over Julian Alaphilippe.

The duo had both kicked hard along the finishing straight, but Alaphilippe (Eitxx – Quick-Step) was left trailing in Albasini’s wake as the Orica-GreenEdge rider wrapped his second win in the space of 24 hours.

Time bonuses at the line saw Albasini double his advantage in the general classification to 20 seconds, with his Orica-GreenEdge team-mate Ivan Santaromita in second position and Froome ideally poised on the same time with the decisive stages still to come.

A three-man break had been allowed up the road early on, and built a lead of over seven minutes before there was any reaction back in the bunch. Movistar pulled hard to bring the trio back in the last 48km though, and only 76 riders remained in the peloton on a lumpy run in to the destination town.

With a number of pure sprinters distanced, Giant-Alpecin and Lampre-Merida set a hard pace in the finale, but it was Albasini who stole the show with another dominant display of sprinting on home turf. Overall leader Swiss Michael Albasini (Orica GreenEdge) celebrates after winning the third stage 172.5 km.

After the stage, Sports Director Nicolas Portal admitted it hard been a harder stage than he'd envisaged, but was pleased to have defended Froome's top-three position.

He told TeamSky.com:

"Everything had been going to plan until Movistar put the hammer down on the third-to-last climb. That brought the break back and it caught everyone by surprise. I'm not sure what they were trying to do for Nairo [Quintana], and although they dropped some sprinters, all the GC guys were still there at the end.

"It definitely made things more selective. Our plan had been to ride for Elia [Viviani] for the sprint, but when he was dropped we focused entirely on getting Chris home safely. The boys did a really good job to achieve that.

"On paper, tomorrow should be another day for the sprinters, but after today I can't be 100%. Elia's in good shape so we'll see what we can do for him, but our main goal is to make sure Chris doesn't lose any time before the decisive stages at the weekend."