Tour de Romandie stage 1: Dorian Godon wins in sprint 1-2 for Decathlon AG2R

Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) continued his team’s fine start to the season with victory on stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie.

The Frenchman capitalised on a disorganised sprint into Fribourg to win ahead of his teammate Andrea Vendrame and Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck).

The win also put Godon into the race leader’s jersey and netted Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s 11th victory of the year.

Godon now leads the race by six seconds over Vermeersch.

After Tuesday's prologue, the opening road stage saw a six-rider break jump clear in the early stages, featuring Fausto Masnada (Soudal Quick-Step), 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).

The group maintained a lead of around three minutes for most of the stage, and covered the early small climbs without major incident. On the second ascent of Arconciel, with around 50km to go, the break’s gap was down to 2:14 with EF-Education EasyPost doing most of the work and Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor Pro Cycling) dropped from the peloton.

By the time the race hit the cobbled climb of Lorette with 37km remaining the advantage remained at just over two minutes, as Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates) attacked from the back with Richard Carapaz (EF-Education EasyPost) glued to his wheel. David Gaudu (Groupama FDJ) made it three leaders on the descent in the dangerous counterattack but a combination of Bora-Hansgrohe and Movistar brought the trio back with around 32km to go.

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Julian Alaphilippe was among the long-range attackers

With the early break still up the road, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Robert Gesink in particular, put the hammer down and led the chase. With 15km to go the six riders in the break had just 30 seconds and on the rolling terrain before the final, several more attacks would follow. Former two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) attacked twice in the final 10km but was reeled in before a messy finale ensued.

No team were able to assert any form of dominance in the closing stages, and Lidl-Trek and Alpecin appeared disjointed at times as the sprinters moved up and vyed for position.

Godon and Vendrame left it late, coming from deep in the front group and surging through through decimated pack as several riders paid for making their efforts two soon. Godon hit the front with less than 50m to go, and with Vendrame on his wheel the result was in no doubt as the pair accelerated towards the line.