Chris Froome Takes Tour De Romandie Stage Four

Last updated : 30 April 2016 By CNS Sport

Chris Froome of Team Sky took the victory on Stage Four of the Tour de Romandie.

The Queens Stage of the race was a 173.2km stage from Conthey to Villars and saw five climbs in the Corin, the category 1 Col des Planches, the category 3 La Rasse and twice up the Barboleusaz.

Eleven riders stayed away until the Barboleusaz climbs and Tejay Van Garderen and Froome got to Pavel Kochetkov (Katusha) and Bob Jungels (Etixx-QuickStep) who were the only two left in the break, just after the first ascent.

By the time of the second ascent, Froome and Van Garderen went away in the pouring rain with Froome then dropping the American and carefully ascending to take the win in 4.44.24 and finished four seconds ahead of Ion Izaguirre of Movistar who just beat Thibaut Pinot, Ilnur Zakarin and race leader Nairo Quintana who leads Pinot by nineteen seconds.

It's been a tough race so far," said Froome to his team's press office, "so to come and win the queen stage today, especially attacking so far out, is a great feeling. It's nice as a team for us to get a victory here and not come away empty handed.

"It's a road I remember from two years ago, with similar conditions to today in the rain and cold. I thought if I'm going to get away it's going to have to be a long way from the finish. Tejay van Garderen came with me and the two of us worked together really well. He had the objective for the general classification and I had my sights set on winning the stage. I'm just really happy that it worked out in the end."