Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) wove his way through the slim gaps in the final metres of bunch kick with savvy bike handling skills and then carried his sprint across the finish line to win stage 1 and take the overall leader's jersey at the Tour de Romandie.
It was a 1-2 for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale as Andrea Vendrame followed Godon across the line in second place, while Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck) finished in third place.
Godon, who finished fourth in the previous day's prologue, started the day just a fraction of a second down in the overall classification. He now leads the race six seconds ahead of Vermeersch and nine seconds ahead of Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep).
How it unfolded
Following the prologue, the Tour de Romandie's first stage was a 165.7km race between Château d'Oex and Fribourg. The lumpy stage included six categorised climbs, a downhill, and a 5km flat run-in to the finish line.
The peloton crested the Sorens (4.2km at 7.5%) before entering the main circuit of the day, which included climbs Arconciel (1.8km at 7.3%) and Lorette (700m at 12.7%). These two ascents were repeated, and then the peloton tackled one last climb over Arconciel before finishing in Fribourg.
Six riders formed a breakaway in the opening kilometres of the stage that included Fausto Masnada (Soudal-QuickStep), Juri Hollmann (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Patrick Gamper (Bora-Hansgrohe), Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Rune Herregodts (Intermarché-Wanty) and Joey Rosskopf (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team).
Tudor Pro Cycling Team quickly pushed to the front of the peloton to manage the gap and protect their prologue winner and overall race leader Maikel Zijlaard.
In the breakaway, Rosskopf picked up the early sprint points in Corbieres while Hollman collected maximum mountain points on the next four categorised ascents as they pushed their gap out to four minutes.
Movistar and EF Education-EasyPost took the reins at the head of the peloton in an attempt to slowly bring the gap down to under two minutes with 30km remaining.
David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) attempted a short-lived chase, but the trio were brought back into the fold by a Visma-Lease a Bike-led peloton.
Rosskopf secured the points at the final intermediate sprint before the gap between the breakaway and the field plummetted to 50 seconds in the last 20km and down to just 30 seconds with 15km to go.
Movistar led the field into the final kilometres of the race into the final climb of the Arconciel, 1.8km at 7.3%. But Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) made good on a pre-race promise to attack on this ascent, launching out of the field on the upper slopes.
Although the Frenchman didn't gain much of a gap, the move shut down the fading breakaway as the dwindled field of about 40 riders raced over the top.
Alaphilippe attacked again inside 7km, setting off a flurry of counter moves on the run-in to the finish line. Andreas Kron (Lotto-Dstny) and Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike) tried late-race fliers, but Movistar held the field together into the last kilometres.
Patrick Gamper (Bora-Hansgrohe) attacked out of the field on the far left side of the road with 2km to go, but he perhaps lacked the punch needed to maintain a gap after being in the breakaway all day.
Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease a Bike, Soudal-QuickStep, and Decathlon AG2R emerged at the front of the field in their respective lead-outs.
Waiting for an opening along the final straightaway, Godon slipped through a gap, unleashed his sprint, and carried on through the finish line to take the win, with his teammate Vendrame on his wheel to take second place.
Results
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