photo credits @ WTF
Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) claimed stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie today, after the British sprinted to victory ahead of Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Romain Bardet (DSM), who had Hayter’s wheel in the lead out, to hang on for third place.
After an attacking finale over the late climb of La Comunal in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Hayter enjoyed a fine lead-out from his team, with Egan Bernal producing a notable turn before Jhonatan Narvaez provided the final launchpad in the last kilometer.
From there, Hayter looked over his shoulder repeatedly before launching a convincing sprint that saw him win by a couple of bike lengths.
Meanwhile, yellow jersey wearer Ethan Vernon was dropped on the penultimate climb of the Col de la Tourne, along his Soudal-QuickStep teammate and prologue winner Josef Cerny.
Hayter, who started the day seventh overall, claimed 10 bonus seconds for the victory and now leads the race by six seconds over Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma).
Race Highlights
It took around 25 kilometers of racing before Gleb Brussenskiy (Astana-Qazaqstan), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafred) and Tom Bohli (Tudor) managed to escape the peloton.
From there, the trio opened up an advantage of almost five minutes, but the peloton wasn’t content with allowing the escapees to venture very far.
Brussenskiy was the last of the attackers to hold off the inevitable, but he was eventually caught inside the final 30 kilometers.
Jumbo-Visma continued to set a fast pace in support Tobias Foss, gradually whittling down the bunch on the penultimate climb of the Col de la Tourne. However, there was still a sizeable number in the main group when the climb was completed with 25 kilometers to go.
The race exploded briefly on the final climb of Le Communal with Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) trying to get away, but the third-category ascent proved too long for the Canadian rider to get very far.
A series of attacks on the flat roads to the finish strung out the bunch during the final kilometer, with Ineos Grenadiers later taking control and delivering Hayter to victory.
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