Briton Adam Yates takes the Tour de Romandie, Thibaut Pinot finishes fifth

Briton Adam Yates won the 76th Tour de Romandie on Sunday, a victory forged the day before at high altitude, while Colombian Fernando Gaviria won the last stage in the sprint in Geneva. At the age of 30, the UAE roller-climber pinned the French-speaking event to his list, after the Tour of Catalonia 2021 and the Tour of the United Arab Emirates, he who has already invited himself to the Top 10 of the three major tours and took the yellow jersey on Saturday by winning the queen stage between Sion and Thyon 2000.

“We controlled the race perfectly today. Thanks to the guys”, soberly commented the Briton, who will take a break before preparing for the Tour de France, where he will be one of Tadej Pogacar’s mountain lieutenants, ” the best runner in the world”, in his eyes. After 170.8 km from Vufflens-la-ville, Gaviria (Movistar) won its 55th professional success against the famous Jet d’eau in Geneva by starting 300 meters from the line to pass the last curve in the lead and sprint the ‘German Nikias Arndt and Briton Ethan Hayter.

French Premier Pinot

“The fatigue accumulated within the peloton helped me. If there had been more lucidity, I would not have been able to start from so far”, analyzed the Colombian, well brought back by his teammates after having struggled in the ascent of Molard, and who is reassured in view of the Tour of Italy. Gaviria was able to thwart the plans of the Ineos team, which had clearly toughened up the race under the impetus of Egan Bernal to outrun the rivals of Ethan Hayter, who won on Thursday, and consoles himself with the orange jersey of best sprinter.

On the French side, Thibaut Pinot, second on Saturday, finished fifth in the event 41 seconds behind Yates, while Romain Bardet, third in the very hilly stage on Thursday, took 7th place overall at 1 min 28 sec.