2012 Tour de Romandie
The 2012 Tour de Romandie was the 66th running of the Tour de Romandie cycling stage race. It started on 24 April in Lausanne and ended on 29 April in Crans-Montana and consisted of six stages, including a race-commencing prologue stage and a race-concluding individual time trial. It was the 14th race of the 2012 UCI World Tour season.
The race was won by Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins of, after winning two stages including the final stage time trial, to take the general classification on the final day. Wiggins won the general classification by 12 seconds over runner-up Andrew Talansky of, who finished second to Wiggins in the final stage; Talansky also won the young rider classification title. Third place was taken by 's Rui Costa after he also put in a strong performance in the time trial, and gained sufficient time to move up from ninth overnight.
In the race's other classifications, Petr Ignatenko of won both the green jersey for the most points gained in intermediate sprints, and the pink jersey for the King of the Mountains classification, while finished at the head of the teams classification, with three of the squad's riders – Wiggins, Richie Porte and Michael Rogers – finishing in the overall top five.
Participating teams
As the Tour de Romandie was a UCI World Tour event, all 18 UCI ProTeams were invited automatically and obligated to send a squad. Two other squads were given wildcard places into the race, and as such, formed the event's 20-team peloton.The 20 teams that competed in the race were:
Stages
Prologue
;24 April 2012 — Lausanne,, individual time trialon the podium after winning the stage in Lausanne. Thomas was one of three riders to place inside the top five of the stage results, along with team-mates Michael Rogers and Mark Cavendish.
The race began once again with a short prologue stage held in and around Lausanne; the stage returning to the city after the race visited Martigny for the prologue in the 2011 edition of the race. The stage itself, in length, was relatively flat, dropping only in altitude from the start, to the end. With rain expected to disrupt the stage, teams decided to spread their time trial specialists across the field in order to maximise their potential of winning the stage. For the first rider to depart the start in Lausanne, 's Maxime Méderel, weather conditions were dry. Mederel ultimately recorded a time of 3' 51" for the stage, but his time only held for a minute as 's Franck Bouyer completed the course 2.1 seconds quicker. Ramūnas Navardauskas improved upon Bouyer's time by almost ten seconds, recording a time one-hundredth inside 3' 40".
Navardauskas' time was marginally quicker than the times of 's Maarten Wynants and his own team-mate David Zabriskie, with the trio of riders maintaining their lead positions until the end of the second wave of riders, when Martin Velits assumed the lead for. Velits completed the course four tenths of a second faster than what Navardauskas had achieved; but he was to only hold the lead for around quarter of an hour, as in the third wave of riders to start the prologue, Stef Clement took the lead for ; the former Dutch national champion in the discipline completed the course in slightly over 3' 37". Clement's time held for a while, as riders struggled to match the pace that he had set; it was not until Giacomo Nizzolo, a rider regarded as a sprinter at the team, recorded a time of 3' 34". Only one rider bettered his time for the course, and it was the rider that started immediately after him; Geraint Thomas set the fastest time of 3' 29", taking his team's fourteenth victory of the year, and his first since returning to the roads after a successful UCI Track World Championships, where he claimed a gold medal and a silver medal. Although he won the stage, Thomas' focus for the race was to support Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins in their respective classifications.
After these two placings had been wrapped up, further riders from, and looked to place themselves among the top ten riders for the stage. Kristof Vandewalle was third for a time, recording a 3' 35" for the parcours, before his time was bettered by Michael Rogers and then Cavendish, who set his time just as the weather conditions changed; rain began to become a factor in the stage proceedings from then on. With these conditions, it guaranteed most of the top ten placings for the early runners but Manuele Boaro recorded the best time of those that went out later in the start order; eventually setting the ninth-fastest time for the stage, with Alex Rasmussen rounding out the top ten for. Overall contenders Tejay van Garderen, Jérôme Coppel, as well as Wiggins and van Garderen's team-mate Cadel Evans all finished outside the top ten after starting in the worst of the conditions; Wiggins placed best in eleventh, having again encountered wet conditions as he had done in the opening stage of March's Paris–Nice race.
Prologue Result and General Classification after Prologue
Rider | Team | Time | |
1 | |||
2 | + 5" | ||
3 | + 6" | ||
4 | + 6" | ||
5 | + 6" | ||
6 | + 8" | ||
7 | + 8" | ||
8 | + 8" | ||
9 | + 9" | ||
10 | + 9" |
Stage 1
;25 April 2012 — Morges to La Chaux-de-Fonds,Four riders – 's Martin Kohler, Kenny Dehaes of, Angelo Tulik and rider Jimmy Engoulvent – advanced clear of the main field in the early running of the stage; the quartet managed to extend their advantage to a maximum of over five minutes around a third of the way through the stage. With all the riders close together time-wise following the prologue stage, were mainstays at the front of the peloton, trying to chip away at the advantage of the breakaway prior to the final finishing loop of around La Chaux-de-Fonds. The quartet held an advantage of just under three-and-a-half minutes over the main field as the pack came across the line for the first time.
were in formation at the head of the field, with the entire team except for Richie Porte, setting the tempo and continued to steadily cutting into the advantage that the lead four riders held; with, the gap had been cut to around 2' 20", with also shadowing the British squad, but allowing them to take a free range of the pace being set. Over the next, the leaders' gap was cut to around a minute, prior to the second of the day's three categorised climbs, the second-category Haut de la Côte. Continued pressure at the head of the main field meant that riders were dislodged from the rear of pack, and those included prologue winner Geraint Thomas and Mark Cavendish. The breakaway was absorbed on the climb with Kohler trying to get clear but a counter-attack from Engoulvent's team-mate Fabrice Jeandesboz put him clear at the summit, although he was later brought back by the field.
With his team on the front, Bradley Wiggins suffered a puncture at around to go, but with Porte, Michael Rogers and Kanstantsin Sivtsov around him for pacing, they all latched back on to the peloton prior to the final climb of the day, Le Communal de la Sagne at remaining. Out front at this point was a seven-rider move representing six teams but could not sustain a meaningful gap ahead of the main field. Several mini-moves tried to get away with force after the descent from the climb, but started to push forward in the pack, and helping out with the pace-making and their protection of team leader Cadel Evans. Jeandesboz and Pierre Rolland were the last riders to attempt a move but were caught by the now-pacemaking and teams in the closing stages. The latter squad's Polish tandem Sylwester Szmyd and Maciej Paterski looked to gain distance at the front of the field ahead of the sprint, but an elongated move from Wiggins ultimately proved successful as the British national champion managed to hold off on the front, to take the leader's jersey on the line. Behind him, his rival from Paris–Nice, Lieuwe Westra finished second ahead of Paolo Tiralongo for.
Stage 1 ResultStage 2;26 April 2012 — Montbéliard to Moutier,Two riders – 's Christian Meier and rider Lars Bak – went clear of the main field in the early running of the stage – beginning just over the Swiss-French border in the city of Montbéliard – and managed to extend their advantage to a maximum of almost four minutes at one stage of the parcours, slightly less than the advantage that was given to a breakaway quartet the previous day. Between them, Bak led across each of the three categorised climbs during the day – taking the pink jersey at the end of the stage, as the mountains classification leader – while Meier claimed the honours at the first of two intermediate sprints during the stage, coming after in Delémont. Meier and Bak held their advantage at around three minutes with around remaining. At this point, Branislau Samoilau attacked off the front of the peloton for the, but could not gather a sufficient advantage from the field; with a maximum gap of just 22 seconds, Samoilau was more likely to be reabsorbed into the pack, and that scenario played out several kilometres along the parcours – at around the to go mark – with the gap to Meier and Bak dropping to just over two-and-a-half minutes as they started to tire out front, having completed over together off the head of the peloton. were again prominent at the peloton's front; although Mark Cavendish was not part of their squadron, after having to slow back to the team car after a mechanical problem. On the La Caquerelle climb, Bak and Meier struggled off the front, with the climb reaching a gradient of 15% in places. Meier eventually cracked on the climb, leaving Bak on his own; at the summit, Bak led by just five seconds ahead of a two-man counter-attack from Fabrice Jeandesboz and 's Peter Stetina, and the peloton were eleven seconds further in arrears. After passing Bak on the road, Jeandesboz and Stetina continued to step up the pace, putting both riders in contention to take the virtual race lead from 's Bradley Wiggins, having started the stage within 30 seconds of Wiggins in the general classification. At the second Delémont intermediate sprint – coming with just to go – Jeandesboz and Stetina held an advantage of 31 seconds through the point, with Stef Clement maintaining the sprints classification lead for, by taking the single point on offer for third through the sprint., and later, slowly brought the pair back, with Luke Durbridge setting the pace for the latter squad, and achieved the catch with to go. This ultimately set up a sprint finish in Moutier, where Stetina's team-mate Ryder Hesjedal attacked first, but was usurped by both Rui Costa, and Luis León Sánchez ; however, all three riders were beaten to the line by Jonathan Hivert, taking his first win at World Tour level for.
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