Irish riders Eddie Dunbar, Darren Rafferty and Archie Ryan have put in solid TT rides on the short sharp prologue effort that got the Tour de Romandie underway today in Saint-Imier, Switzerland.
Irish champion Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) was 14 seconds down on surprise stage winner, Samuel Watson (Ineos Grenadiers), after the 3.44km flat-out ride, but lost less time to his general classification rivals.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal QuickStep) was best of the fancied men for the final yellow jersey, finishing 8th on the stage and ceding four seconds to the 23-year-old British winner.
Dunbar's time was good enough for 49th place; not exactly setting the world on fire, though the prologue was never going to suit him. The time gaps through the field will likely have no major impact on the general standings by the time the race concludes at the weekend.
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Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) endured a frustrating start to his Tour de Romandie when he appeared to have trouble zipping up his skinsuit on the start ramp and definitely lost a couple of seconds as a result.
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The Co Tyrone man, who is a strong TT rider, was 59th today, some 15 seconds down on the winner. For his part, Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) was 81st today at 18 seconds.
Watson, who was a very late call-up to the Ineos Grenadiers squad for this race, leads overall from Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who he beat today by just three tenths of a second. Iván Romeo (Movistar Team), the 21-year-old reigning U23 TT world champion, is 3rd overall at three seconds.
The race continues tomorrow with the first road stage, which takes the riders some 194km from Münchenstein to Fribourg. Though there is no uphill finish, the stage includes 3,200m of climbing.
