Tadej Pogacar surprises everyone-this time not by a hit

Reduced from his fourth career success at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, with which he sportingly avenged the bitterness of third place at the Tour of Flanders and that of second place at Paris-Roubaix, Tadej Pogacar is making headlines in a negative sense this time: the reigning world champion, in fact, did not go beyond a (for him) disappointing sixth place in the time trial of the Tour of Romandie, a historic stage race in which he is seeking his first overall victory.

Wearing the first yellow jersey of the ‘Romandie’ is Frenchman Dorian Godon of Ineos Grenadiers, who finished the just 3.2-kilometer stage in Villars-sur-Glane with a time of 3’35”. On the day’s podium, both at 6″, Jakob Soderqvist of Lidl-Trek and Ivo Oliveira, Pogacar’s teammate at UAE Team Emirates.

Pogacar was classified in sixth place, finishing 7″ slower than Godon.Mauro Schmid of Team Jayco AlUla, Alex Zingle of Team Visma-Lease a Bike (both ahead of him after calculating hundredths of a second) and Albert Philipsen of Lidl-Trek, who finished in eighth place, also achieved the same performance as the Slovenian.

Chapter Italians: Lorenzo Germani (Groupama FDJ-United) was the best of the tricolor troop, 15″ behind Godon. A second worse was the time of Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), who is counting on the race in French-speaking Switzerland to put on kilometers ahead of this year’s big goal, the Tour de France, which he will ride while skipping the Giro d’Italia.