Pascal Ackermann (BORA-hansgrohe) prevailed on the last stage of the Tour de Romandie to collect his first professional victory. Due to the relatively straightforward profile of today’s stage, it was expected that the yellow jersey of Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) would not be put in significant danger today and all eyes were therefore on the sprinters.
A 182km-long stage from Mont-sur-Rolle to Geneva concluded this year’s Tour de Romandie. With three Category 3 climbs in the first half of the race, the stage presented undulating terrain. However, with the flat finale it was likely that the sprinters would have their day today.
Almost immediately after the start, five riders took their chance to form the breakaway of the day, and after 25km they had managed to carve out an advantage of three minutes, while LottoNL-Jumbo took over responsibility for setting the pace in the main field.
At the foot of the last categorised climb of the day, BORA-hansgrohe, together with Bahrain Merida, set the tempo at the front of the peloton, and the gap to the break began to come down. With 30 kilometres remaining until the finish, BORA-hansgrohe put down the hammer on the slightly downhill stretch into Geneva, and the escapees’ lead was whittled down quite quickly as they were in the sights of the chasing peloton.
The breakaway was caught by the speeding field with 11 kilometres left to race, at which point the sprinters’ trains began to get themselves into formation. After a strong job by Rudi Selig to bring Ackermann into an excellent position from which to launch himself for the final, the young German sprinter raced across the finish line to celebrate the first professional victory of his career.
Pascal Ackermann – “The guys worked hard to support me the whole day, and in the end Rudi Selig brought me into the perfect position in the last 200m. I am very thankful for all the hard work of my teammates. It was a real goal of ours to win today and we achieved this. The race has not been easy and it was difficult for me to stay within the time limit on the penultimate stage. So it is nice to see that our hard work paid off.”
