The Tour de Romandie organizers stick to the tradition of opening their mountainous stage race with a prologue and after last year's experiment that saw the riders tackle a hard climb right from the beginning of the race, the course for this year' opener is a very traditional one. With an almost completely flat profile, very few corners and plenty of long, flat straights, it is one for the true specialists and a host of strong time trialists have gathered in Switzerland to battle it out in Ascona.

 

The course

As usual, the Tour de Romandie kicks off with a prologue but last year's uphill experiment has been replaced by a much more traditional opener. On the first day, the riders will tackle a short 5.57km course in Ascona that seems to be one for the real specialists. After a very slight rise in the opening kilometre, the riders descend to the river in Ascona where they make a bending right-hand turn to follow a long, straight flat road along its shores.

 

From there it is flat all the way to the finish and only a few corners at the midpoint and some sweeping bends as they follow the road along the shores of the Maggiore Lake will offer any kind of technical challenges. Having followed the lake road, the riders end on the Piazza G. Motta very close to their point of departure.

 

With only very few corners, no climbing and long flat roads, this is a stage for the real prologue specialists. After five days of mountainous racing, the time differences will play a very little role in the final outcome of the race but it may be a day for the stronger time trialists among the race favourites to deal their rivals an early blow.

 

 

 

The weather

The Tour de Romandie is known for its rainy weather and this year's edition seems to be even more brutal than usual as lots of rain and snow is forecasted for most of the week. However, the riders should get the race underway on a rather pleasant day in Ascona.

 

The weather forecasts predict a partly sunny day with a maximum temperature of 15 degrees. There is a slight chance that a bit of rain will fall, with the risk being greatest towards the end of the day. Even though the course is not technical, wet roads will have a big impact on such a short course and will surely play a role in the outcome of the stage. Hopefully, it will stay dry all day to give all riders equal conditions.

 

There will only be a very light wind from a southerly direction, meaning that the riders will have a cross-tailwind, then a headwind and finally a cross-tailwind again. It may be a bit stronger towards the end of the day but should have very little impact on the racing.

 

The favourites

With stages mostly made up of hilly routes and time trials, it is no surprise to see that the Tour de Romandie peloton is loaded with both climbers and TT specialists. Traditionally most of the sprinters stay away from the mountainous race in Switzerland but the race has always had a strong appeal to the great TT specialists. It may seem strange for them to head to one of the hilliest races of the years but especially the opening prologue is a real draw for them.

 

This high level of the field means that tomorrow's prologue will be a heavily contested and very open affair. While the hierarchy in long time trial is often clearly established and the favourites easy to pick out, prologues are far more unpredictable and they have rarely been dominated by a single rider.

 

Prologues after often won by either a sprinter or a TT specialist and a mix of TT skills and explosiveness are rewarded. Tomorrow's course, however, is a bit a longer than Romandie prologues have traditionally been and there a very few corners. This means that the balance tips a bit towards the bigger, stronger guys, with the more explosive riders being a bit more disadvantaged. Nonetheless, the short distance means that it is still not a time trial for the real diesel engines.

 

This means that it is hard to look beyond Tony Martin when it comes to picking a favourite. The big German has never been a prologue specialist and in fact he has won very few of them in his long and decorated career. Furthermore, he has had a hard time in the 2014 time trial after being defeated in Dubai, Algarve and Tirreno until he finally got the ball rolling when he won in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.

 

That win, however, was taken on a course that is massively different from the one he faces in the Romandie prologue. First and foremost it was much longer and secondly it was a much more hilly affair. Those two time trials are almost incomparable and tomorrow's stage is much more in line with the ones he faced in Dubai, Algarve and at Tirreno.

 

After his difficult start to the season, Martin showed that he was back at his best in Pays Vasco where he not only won the time trial but also took an impressive solo win on a hilly stage before climbing excellently well in one of the hardest stages to support Michal Kwiatkowski. This indicates that he is currently in a very good condition but of course there is a risk that his good climbing has come at the expense of his time trialing. On paper tomorrow's flatter course should suit him much better than the hilly one in Spain but he still hasn't shown that his power on the flats are back at its usual level.

 

Furthermore, the short distance doesn't suit him and this makes him less of a favourite that he would usually be. Nonetheless, his excellent condition makes it almost impossible to look beyond him as the favourite. He has GC ambitions in a race that does not look too difficult for him and he will love to kick it off in the best possible way. He has won short time trials in the past and would probably have taken the win on a much more technical course at the 2012 Tour de France prologue if his race hadn't been ruined by a mechanical. He abandoned Liege to be fresh for the Swiss stage race and if he is firing on all cylinders, he will be the man to beat.

 

Martin won't have it all his own way as there are a lot of strong rivals that all have a realistic chance of taking the win. One of them is Rohan Dennis who entered the real time trialing elite when he finished a fabulous second behind Martin in the long Dauphiné TT. Since then he has continued to impress in the individual discipline and it is noteworthy that he has mostly excellent on shorter courses.

 

In last year's Tour of Alberta prologue, he was beaten into second by an outstanding Peter Sagan and this year he has already finished 2nd in two time trials over similar distances at the Criterium International and the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe. In those races, he was beaten by two of the real powerhouses in the discipline, Tom Dumoulin and Alex Dowsett, and tomorrow's course is not too different from the ones that allowed to almost beat those excellent specialists. He hasn't raced since Sarthe in the middle of April and so will be completely fresh for Romandie which is an important race for him as he gears up for the Tour of California. He will only have improved over the last few weeks and with his excellent track record in this kind of efforts, he will be a danger man.

 

Astana have one of the greatest specialists in their ranks as Lieuwe Westra has so often proved that he belongs to the very top of the hierarchy in this special discipline. He has not only excelled on long courses. In fact he finished 3rd in last year's Paris-Nice prologue which was a much shorter and more technical affair and the longer distance and the fewer corners should suit him well. He has also been a perennial contender in the De Panne time trial which may be significantly longer but remains a short, intense effort.

 

Westra had a terrible 2013 season but after his splendid stage win at the Volta a Catalunya, he seems to be returning to his 2012 level. He did well in the Ardennes classics where he had a lot of bad luck with crashes which may still hamper him a bit. However, he is clearly in good condition and if he has recovered from his health issues, he could very well take the first leader's jersey in Romandie.

 

His biggest threat could maybe even come from within his own team as the impressive Michal Kwiatkowski is ready for another challenge just days after ending his classics campaign. The Pole has had a hard spring schedule but nothing suggests that he is fatigued yet and he even claimed to have been feeling better in Liege than in the previous classics. Of course he is unlikely to have recovered completely but for such a short effort, the strains of Sunday's race will have less of an impact.

 

Kwiatkowski is one of the very best time trialists in the world and his performance in Romandie suggests that he is currently at his very best. He is a past winner of the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen prologue and he beat the likes of Martin and Tony Malori on a flat, slightly downhill course in Algarve earlier this year. Of course he would have benefited from a harder course but no one can rule out another top performance from one of the in-form riders.

 

Orica-GreenEDGE line up several strong time trialists but the team have made no secret of the fact that their man for the prologue is Michael Hepburn. The Australian had a hard time in his first years as a professional but this season he seems to have stepped up his level. He beat Luke Durbridge at the Australian TT championships and the likes of Fabian Cancellara and Lars Boom in the Qatar TT to prove that he can mix it up with the best.

 

Since returning to Europe, he has had a harder time and he still hasn't proved that he can win a high level TT in the WorldTour. This makes him more of an outsider than a real favourite. However, the short, flat course suits the former track rider perfectly and with his higher level, a win is certainly not beyond his reach.

 

Jonathan Castroviejo won the Tour de Romandie prologue a few years ago and even though he has failed to repeat that achievement in a later WorldTour time trial, he still belongs to the very best. He has just returned from Colombia where he has prepared for the Giro with Nairo Quintana and so will be in excellent condition.

 

He may have focused a bit more on his climbing than his TT skills and nowadays he is disadvantaged on a short, flat course compared to the heavier guys. In the past, however, he has won several TTs over similar distances and the combination of TT prowess and great form could allow him to repeat his 2011 win in Romandie.

 

Finally, we will point to our jokers. Marcel Kittel may be mostly known as a sprinter but when he first rose to fame, it was in the role of TT specialist in the youth ranks. Since turning his attention to the sprints, he has lost a bit of his strength in the individual discipline but he remains a very powerful rider for this kind of effort.

 

This year he has been in splendid condition all season and this has been reflected in some excellent TTs. He was 11th in Dubai and 6th in De Panne and now he is likely to be in even better condition as he has been ramping up his condition for the Giro. The course for tomorrow's stage is shorter than the ones he faced in those two previous time trials and this should suit him well. It is certainly not impossible that Kittel will add a TT win to his ever growing palmares.

 

Svein Tuft has had a slow start to the season and has not performed at his usual level in the time trials he has done. However, the Canadian is one of the most powerful riders in the peloton and as a past winner of the Eneco Tour prologue, he has proved that he handles shorter distances well. His team have not given any indications that he should be at the top of his game and so he is more of a joker than a real favourite but no one can ever rule out Tuft in this kind of effort.

 

CyclingQuotes's stage winner pick: Tony Martin

Other winner candidates: Rohan Dennis, Lieuwe Westra

Outsider: Michal Kwiatkowski, Michael Hepburn, Jonathan Castroviejo

Jokers: Marcel Kittel, Svein Tuft, Jesse Sergent