Definitely in great form, French champion Dorian Godon won the prologue of the Tour de Romandie on Tuesday, contested over 3.2 km around Villars-sur-Glâne, beating the huge favorite for the event, Tadej Pogacar, by seven seconds.
To wear the first yellow jersey of this 79th edition, the slender (1.89 m) 29-year-old puncher won after 3 min 35 sec 12/100th of effort, six seconds ahead of the Portuguese Ivo Oliveira and the Swede Jakob Söderqvist.
This is the 20th professional success for the Lyonnais based in Spain, the sixth at World Tour level and already the fourth since mid-March, after the 7th stage of Paris-Nice and the 1st and 3rd stages of the Tour of Catalonia.
“I really loved it. I took the turns hard and took a little risk,” said Dorian Godon at the RTS microphone, happy to show “another side of cycling, not necessarily times of 20, 30, 40 kilometers.”
Climb to Ovronnaz on Wednesday
After the Belgian Wout van Aert on Paris-Roubaix, the Frenchman becomes only the second rider to beat Tadej Pogacar this season, fresh from winning Sunday in his fourth Liège-Bastogne-Liège, his fourth success in five races.
The Slovenian ogre, who started in last position, set the fifth time at 7 sec 17 from Dorian Godon: “it’s not tomorrow (Wednesday) that I’m going to beat him, so there weren’t 50 possibilities,” joked the Habs, believing that the UAE leader had also taken “less risks” for his first time of the season.
The riders will continue on Wednesday with a 171 km loop around Martigny, where the demanding climb to Ovronnaz (8.9 km at 9.8%) will offer the world champion a first opportunity to create gaps.
Without a time trial, the 79th edition will end on Sunday with the final ascent towards Leysin (14.3 km at 6%), and has a total of more than 14,000 m of elevation gain over five days.
