Race analysis, favourites, and predictions for Tour de Romandie 2024

Once again, after the classics, it's time for the Tour de Romandie, one of the most prestigious one-week races on the calendar. The race, which covers the French-speaking region of Switzerland, presents a clearly recognizable 6-stage route, highlighting the presence of two time trial stages (a 2 km prologue and the 15-km stage 3) and two mountaintop finales (stages 2 and 4).

Route

As we mentioned, the inclusion of two time trial stages is one of the race's distinctive features. The other is that this beautiful alpine territory lends itself to including mountain passes in the route: this time, stage 2 includes the pass through Les Mosses (12.8 km at 4.2% before facing the final climb to Salvan - Les Marecottes (7.8 km at 7.4%), and stage 4 features 4 climbs where the finish in Leysin stands out (13.4 km at 6.1%). The route is completed with a medium mountain stage (stage 1) that accumulates 2600 meters of positive elevation, and a single opportunity for sprinters (stage 5).

Favorites

The favorites for the race must necessarily be climbers, and packing a good time trial can also be decisive. Juan Ayuso (1000), Adam Yates (1200), Jai Hindley (1000), Enric Mas (1000), Alexandr Vlasov (1200), Brandon McNulty (800), Tao Geoghegan Hart (800), Thymen Arensman (800), Damiano Caruso (600), Ilan Van Wilder (600), David Gaudu (1000), Sergio Higuita (800), Lucas Plapp (400), Alexey Lutsenko (400), Julian Alaphilippe (600), Koen Bouwman, Lenny Martinez (400), Pavel Sivakov (600), Egan Bernal (200), Giulio Ciccone (1000), Louis Meintjes (400), and Edward Dunbar (400) are some of the cyclists who can compete for the general classification.

Photo: © Tour de Romandie