The Telegraph
Peter Sagan sprints to stage win as Rohan Dennis retains Tour de Romandie lead and Chris Froome makes further time losses
Wednesday April 28 — Aigle to Martigny, 168.1km Peter Sagan claimed his first Tour de Romandie stage since his last appearance at the race in 2010 when the Bora-Hansgrohe rider won a sprint finish ahead of Sonny Colbrelli and Patrick Bevin on Wednesday. It was the second win of the season for Sagan , the three-time world champion, and will provide the Slovakian a wee-timed confidence boost as he prepares for his second outing at the Giro d’Italia which gets under way in 11 days’ time with a short individual time trial in Turin on May 8. In what was a scrappy finale to a lumpy and circuitous stage, Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) opened up his sprint first before Sagan jumped onto his wheel, taking with him Bevin (Israel-Start up Nation). However, once Sagan launched his decisive sprint neither were able to respond. There was no change at the top of the general classification and so Rohan Dennis will start Thursday’s hilly second stage wearing the leader’s yellow jersey, while Ineos Grenadiers team-mates Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte are 9sec behind in second and third respectively. Chris Froome (Israel-Start up Nation), meanwhile, finished in the second group 3min 34sec behind the main protagonists and so despite moving up the general classification by 25 places, trails Dennis by 4min 26sec after just two days racing – one of which was a short prologue time trial.
