Simon Spilak (Katusha) repeated his splendid performance from the 2013 Tour de Romandie when he won today's queen stage of the Swiss race just 12 months after doing the same in the previous edition of the race. Again he escaped with Chris Froome (Sky) on the final climb and he narrowly beat the Brit in the final sprint to take both the stage win and a narrow 1-second lead in the general classification.

 

One year ago Simon Spilak and Chris Froome dropped all their rivals in the queen stage of the Tour de Romandie and at the finish, the Brit allowed his Slovenian companion to take the stage win while he kept hold of the leader's jersey. Today the  2014 queen stage of the race had an almost identical script as the pair again proved to be in a class of their own on the final climb.

 

Froome seemed to be riding away to a solo win when he clawed his way back to Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) who had hit out early on the final of four big climb and made an immediate counterattack that the Giro champion couldn't respond to. However, Spilak rode perfectly within his limits to make the very rare feat of closing the gap to the Tour de France champion.

 

Like last year, the pair were in perfect agreement and worked together in the final part of the climb and the subsequent descent and flat stretch to the finish. Unlike last year, however, Froome had no plan to give any gifts as he had done 12 months earlier.

 

At the same time, however, Froome was in no mood to see the pair slow down due to a tactical battle and so he kept setting a hard pace all the way until the 350m to go mark. Here he launched the sprint right from the front but Spilak quickly moved up alongside the strong Brit.

 

Froome refused to give up though and seemed to be taking the win when he made the mistake of briefly sitting down during the sprint. That allowed Spilak to get a slight gap and even though Froome came fast at the end, he ran out of metres in his quest to take the stage win.

 

Behind the strong pair, a chase group with Vincenzo Nibali, Jakob Fuglsang (both Astana), Benat Intxausti (Movistar), Rui Costa (Lampre), and Mathias Frank (IAM) had formed and even though they worked well together and Nibali made use of his best descending skills, they failed to get any closer to the leaders. They kept losing time all the way up the climb and on the descent and flat stretch to the finish, they failed to take back just the slightest bit of the minute they had lost at the top.

 

Before the stage, Spilak and Froome had only been separated by 3 seconds on GC and as Spilak scored four bonus seconds more than Froome, the Slovenian took over the race lead from Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEDGE) who had been dropped already on the first climb.

 

Costa won the sprint for third to move into third on GC and so the podium is now made up of the same three riders that finished in the top 3 12 months ago. They are likely to battle it out for the final overall honours in the final stage time trial but first Spilak will enjoy a day in yellow in tomorrow's final road stage. It takes place on a lumpy 29km circuit in Fribourg that will be covered 6 times in a stage that seems to be made for attackers or strong sprinters with a solid pair of climbing legs.

 

The queen stage

After a few days for the sprinters, the climbers got their only chance in this year's Tour de Romandie in today's big queen stage that brought the riders over 180.5km from Le Bouveret to Aigle. The stage contained four big category 1 climbs spread throughout the course, with the final one summiting just 15km from the line. From there, it was a partly technical descent and four flat kilometres to the finish in Aigle.

 

Rain and cold had been forecasted for the stage and the riders were not spared anything as they took off in very wet conditions. Two riders, Matthias Brandle (IAM) and Lieuwe Westra (Astana), failed to make the start, with the latter heading home to recover from a knee injury he sustained at FlecheWallonne and the former having fallen ill overnight.

 

The break is formed

Usually mountain stages have a rather fast start with many riders going on the attack and this year's queen stage was no different. Already at kilometre 1, 8 riders took off and even though they ended up being the break of the day, they had to fight for a while to get a bigger gap.

 

Danilo Wyss (BMC), Jack Bobridge (Belkin), Tom Veelers (Giant-Shimano), Elia Favilli (Lampre-Merida), Boris Vallee (Lotto Belisol) and the Europcar duo of Davide Malacarne and Cyril Gauthier were 19 seconds ahead at the 6km mark and this  allowed Andriy Grivko (Astana) to bridge across. After 14km of racing, the gap was 48 seconds and finally the peloton decided to let them go.

 

Sky put down the hammer

The gap quickly reached the 4-minute mark before Team Sky started to control the situation for defending champion Chris Froome. The British team set a steady pace that allowed the advantage to still grow a bit  and when they hit the bottom of the first climb, Col des Planches, it was up to 6 minutes.

 

Sky really put own the hammer on the steep slopes and the peloton started to split to pieces. Up ahead, Veelers and Vallee were the first riders to drop off, leaving just 6 riders to press on.

 

FDJ set the pace

The gap came down to 1.40 as FDJ.fr now took over the pace-setting for their leader Thibaut Pinot and this saw the advantage drop down to just a minute at the top of the climb. Gautier led Malacarne, Grivo and Favilli across the line. At this point, race leader Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Michal Kwiatkowski (OPQS) had already been dropped and they found themselves one minute behind the 30-rider peloton.

 

Bobridge and Grivko were the next riders to get dropped by the front group while the Movistar riders Pablo Lastras and Juan Jose Lobato left the race. On the descent, Kwiatkowski managed to rejoin the peloton that now contained 60 riders while Albasini was still 40 seconds behind.

 

The break explodes to pieces

On the next climb, Favilli fell off the pace and joined forces with Bobridge and Grivko and a little late, the pace by the Europcar duo was also too much for Wyss. Favilli was the first to be caught by the peloton while Bobridge and Grivko followed suit a little later.

 

Garmin-Sharp had now taken control to set up their leader Andrew Talansky and they caught Wyss at the 78km mark. At that point, the gap was back up to 1.34.

 

Tschopp scores points

Malacarne led Gautier over the top of the second climb while KOM leader Johann Tschopp (IAM) scored a few more points by taking third ahead of his teammate Jonathan Fumeaux and a hard-working Tom Danielson. At that point the gap was down to 59 seconds.

 

The pace slowed down a bit in the valley and so the gap to the 60-70 rider group went back up to 1.43 at the 99km mark. At that point Albasini was 3.20 behind the main group.

 

The break is caught

The peloton took it rather easy on the long, flat roads and this allowed the gap to reach 3.57 at the 112km mark. Gautier won the first intermediate sprint ahead of Malacarne while Francis Mourey took third as his FDJ team had again gone back to work, bringing the gap down to 1.55 after 127km of racing.

 

On the third climb, Garmin again hit the front and 1km from the top, they had brought back the two escapees. Tschopp attacked over the top while Gautier took off in pursuit as the pair battle for mountain points. Tschopp crossed the line in first with Gautier in second while Rohan Dennis (Garmin) led Fuglsang and the rest of a 28-rider group across the line a little later.

 

Mederel takes off

Tschopp and Gaurier were both brought back while the peloton slowed down a bit on the descent. As soon as they hit the short flat stretch at the bottom, Malacarne started to work for Europcar while a lot of riders rejoined from behind.

 

As Malacarne started to fade, Europcar sent Maxime Mederl off in an attack and he crossed the line at the intermediate sprint as the lone leader. Sander Armee (Lotto Belisol) and Mikael Cherel (Ag2r) followed a little later as they had taken off in pursuit and the trio quickly combined forces.

 

Nibali makes his move

Sky had now started to work in the main group with Mikel Nieve setting the pace. As David Lopez rejoined the group, he took over from his teammate and they caught Mederel who had been dropped by his fellow escapees.

 

On the lower slopes of the final climb, Lopez brought the front duo back and he continued to set the pace while the peloton started to splinter. Surprisingly, Nibali took off in a very early attack as he wanted to make use of the hard part at the bottom of the climb.

 

Froome takes off on his own

The Italian got an immediate gap but Froome quickly responded. Gradually he got back to the Italian with Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Spilak on his wheel.

 

Froome made an immediate counterattack that only Nibali could respond to while Spilak quickly dropped Majka. Froome, however, continued to ride hard on the front and finally Nibali had to surrender. The Italian was even passed by Spilak who just rode within himself at a steady pace.

 

A strong chase group forms

Behind Froome, Nibali and Spilak, a chase group with Fuglsang, Rigoberto Uran (OPQS), Jesus Herrada (Movistar), Costa, Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Yury Trofimov (Katusha), Intxausti, Majka, Frank and Andrew Talansky (Garmin) had formed, with Pinot and Talansky doing most of the work. Behind, a group with Riccardo Zoidl (Trek), Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff), Ion Izagirre (Movistar) and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) were their nearest chasers.

 

Frank attacked from the chase group while Pinot took off in pursuit, and the Swiss quickly joined Nibali. Pinot faded back and instead Talansky took off. The AMerican was joined by Intxausti and Fuglsang and they closed the gap to Nibali and Frank.

 

Spilak closes the gap

While Spilak caught Froome, Costa, Pinot, Herrada and Majka also joined the first chase while Trofimov and Uran had both been dropped. Spilak and Froome started to cooperate immediately while Intxuasti attacked from the chase group.

 

Nibali and Frank took off in pursuit just as disaster struck for Talansky. The American dropped his chain and so lost contact with the Costa group.

 

Majka and Pinot hit the deck

For a long time, Spilak and Froome were cooperating well while Intxausti, Frank/Nibali and Costa/Majka/Pinot/Fuglsang were the next groups on the road. However, the front pair were clearly the strongest and they kept extending their advantage.

 

Majka and Pinot both went down in a crash and moments later Pinot had more bad luck as he had to change his bike. That forced Costa to take over the pace-setting with Fuglsang in tow as the Dane refused to do any work to catch his teammate Nibali.

 

The chasers combine forces

Just before the top, Frank and Nibali caught Intxausti and the trio crested the summit with a one-minute deficit. On the upper part of the descent, Fuglsang and Costa joined them to form a 5-rider chase group while Herrada, Pinot, Talansky, Izagirre and Marcel Wyss (IAM) combined forces a little further behind.

 

Nibali led the chase group all the way down the descent, constantly getting small gaps to Intxausti and Fuglsang who were reluctant to risk anything on the wet roads. At the bottom, however, the quintet were still together and still 1 minute behind the leading pair.

 

Spilak takes the win

Spilak and Froome worked well together until Froome hit the front with 800m to go. The Brit now rode hard until he launched his sprint from the front just 250m from the line. It seemed that Spilak would easily pass him but the Brit refused to give up and it all came down to a photo finish, with Spilak taking a narrow win.

 

Costa easily won the sprint of the chase group while Herrada was equally superior in the sprint for 8th.