Astana's riders have solid day at Stage 2 of Tour de Romandie
"Today the team helped me to keep out of trouble, as it was a hard stage. After one of the climbs the peloton split for a moment, but my teammates closed the gap, so there were no problems at the end for our ambitions in the GC. Tomorrow awaits a challenging time trial as it's 9 kilometers of climbing, but I feel better than at the day of the prologue, so I'm curious what I can do tomorrow," said Jakob Fuglsang.
With Omar Fraile starting in the green Points Jersey at the start in Delemont, the peloton took off for a 173.9km-long stage to Yverdon-les-Bains. Straight from the start the day's breakaway was formed, including Andriy Grivko and the riders who would eventually win the race, Thomas de Gendt. Grivko was not able to follow De Gendt, as the Belgian rider dropped all the other riders in the breakaway one-by-one.
Behind the breakaway, the peloton split after the descent of the first climb, but at the end everything came back together. In the streets of Yverdon-les-Bains, a few minutes behind today's winner, the peloton ended with a bunch sprint with all the riders of Astana Pro Team safely in the pack. Omar Fraile lost his green Points Jersey to the winner of the day, Thomas de Gendt.
"I knew that if I wanted to follow Thomas de Gendt until the finish, I should have been very strong, but this was not the case today. But at least I tried it, but De Gendt was too strong for everybody today. Now we look forward to tomorrow, we hope we can do a good job in the General Classification," said Andriy Grivko after the finish.
As said, tomorrow the riders will face a time trial of 9,9km, climbing a 1stcat. col to Villars.
