Tour de Romandie 2023 Preview
Hosting Country: Switzerland
Last Year's 1/2/3: Aleksandr Vlasov, Gino Mäder, Simon Geschke
The last major multi day stage race before the Giro, the Tour de Romandie is where some of the major Tour de France contenders may come out to play. The six day stage race hosts two time trials (with one prologue) and ends the day before the women's Vuelta kicks off.
Both Hayter brothers (Leo & Ethan) are on the start list together for INEOS and it should be fun to see them racing together. Juan Ayuso is also making a comeback with UAE after dealing with a ligament injury.
Given it's the Alps, there's a number of categorized mountain climbs. If you need a refresher guide on categorization of climbs, see our guide below.
Odds
We personally think they're underrating the youngsters Jorgenson, Gloag and Fischer-Black after their recent strong performances this spring. They're not even cracking the 20 performers here - especially on the prologue day where all three of them have had top ten performances in other TTs.
Call us crazy, but we think the young riders know a thing or two about riding fast time trials. Mix that with the fact that they all can climb and you've got some tempting odds on these youngsters.
Ion Izagirre should also perform well overall in the race
Prologue
Ion Izagirre should perform well overall in this race and has decent ITT capabilities. We think he's in the value pick odds here for the prologue at 81.00.
In this case, they'll be two ITTs in the course of six days, which will separate the true general classification (GC) riders from those who are simply hill climbers.
Stage 1
The first true stage, a couple of category two climbs early on in the stage, followed by a category three (we personally think it's a category four) climb that shouldn't prove a challenge to anyone.
Stage 2
Five categorized climbs span the width of the stage. Throw in two sprint time bonuses and you have what might be an interesting stage. The climbs aren't hard enough to make a huge break in GC, but there's potential if a certain team wants to take the reigns.
Stage 3 (Individual Time Trial - ITT)
As if one ITT wasn't enough. Let's throw in another, along with a decently hard climb. You best be hoping your each way bet rider has been doing some TT miles over the winter.
Stage 4
The hardest stage of the race. Should make or break GC. Three category one climbs with one right at the finish for 21km. This is a stage we do not envy the riders on. But if you wanted to hop on the trainer to watch it and enjoy riders who are suffering more than you - today's the day.
If GC's close you may see a breakaway of hill climbers who aren't close on GC given the win, so take that into account for your bets.
Stage 5
The final day. The category two climb is relatively early on in the stage, expect a break, but also expect the controlling team on GC to be able to re-catch it before the finish.
We don't expect GC positions to change here unless the virtual GC winning team at the start messes up.
Value Picks
While the odds haven't dropped quite yet, here's some names you should watch out for to perform well.
Thomas Gloag
Gloag really went for it in the Tour of Valencia earlier in the year, and we're a little surprised he didn't finish higher in GC - but he did manage to nab a second place in one of the stages.
Expect Gloag, given the startlist for Jumbo, to be given free reign again and potentially steal a win on stage four or five.
Given he's young, he probably knows his drag co-efficient (CdA) and should perform well in the TTs as well, making him a potential true GC contender.