[Article was written before the start of the Tour de Romandie and has not been updated.]
Title holder Ilnur Zakarin is on the start list in the Giro. The first Grand Tour of the season leaves one week after the Tour de Romandie so odds are he will not give full gas. Same goes for Tom Dumoulin and Rigoberto Uran. But all the other GC guys will have plenty of time to rest after the Tour de Romandie finishes in Geneva.
To win the race in 2016 you definitely have to be a strong time trialist. Besides the prologue on day one, stage 3 is a chrono race of over 15 kilometres featuring a climb with steepest sections at around 10%. Yes, that’s good news for the likes of Chris Froome, Richie Porte and Tejay van Garderen.
Simon Spilak boasts an impressive track record on Swiss roads. A one time winner in Romandie, he was the runner up in the last three editions (twice behind Froome, once behind Zakarin), while he won the Tour de Suisse in 2015.
Similar story for Rui Costa. In 2012, 2013 and 2014 he took the Tour de Suisse and in all of these years he finished third in the Tour de Romandie.
Favourites Tour de Romandie 2016:
*** Chris Froome, Richie Porte, Tejay van Garderen, Nairo Quintana
** Ilnur Zakarin, Simon Spilak, Rui Costa, Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot
* Bauke Mollema, Geraint Thomas, Rafal Majka, Wilco Kelderman, Tom Dumoulin
Tour de Romandie 2016: Route, google Maps and Tweets
Click on the images to zoom.
