To win the 2017 Tour de Romandie as a rider, two skills are indispensable – you’ve got to be a strong time trialist and an outstanding climber. The six-day stage race begins with a prologue and ends with a hilly individual time trial of 18.3 kilometers. Both are important, and in between are solid mountain stages – stage 1 and stage 4 -, that will prove to be decisive for the overall, too.
In last edition, Nairo Quintana turned out on top. The Colombian is not competing in the 2017 Tour de Romandie, but former winners Chris Froome (2013, 2014), Ilnur Zakarin (2015), Simon Spilak (2010) and Roman Kreuziger (2009) do. Last year Froome saw his GC ambitions go up in a puff of smoke during an off-day in stage 2, yet he came back with a vengeance as he climbed to victory in stage 4.
Richie Porte and Primoz Roglic are the only contenders who pocketed a multi-day stage race in 2017, although we have to go back to January and February for those wins. The Tasmanian was in a class of his own in the Tour Down Under, while the former ski jumper from Slovenia took the Volta ao Algarve. Furthermore, he won two stages in this month’s Tour of the Basque Country – one of which was an ITT.
Favourites Tour de Romandie 2017
*** Chris Froome, Richie Porte, Ilnur Zakarin, Ion Izagirre, Primoz Roglic
** Wilco Kelderman, Rigoberto Uran, Andrey Amador, Robert Gesink, Bob Jungels, Simon Spilak
* Tejay van Garderen, Roman Kreuziger, Rafal Majka, Jarlinson Pantano, Sebastien Reichenbach, Warren Barguil