Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) has enjoyed a very strong start to his Tour of Romandie with 15th in the opening TT today.
While it is far from the best result of his career against the watch, the short sharp distance of the prologue, at just 3.87km would generally not suit him as well as a longer TT.
However, he has come out of the traps very hard and lost only a handful of seconds to stage winner Jan Tratnik (Bahrain Merida).
The 29-year-old Slovenian TT champion got the better of compatriot Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) but just one second to take the stage victory and the first leader's jersey of the race.
Roche recorded the same time as a cluster of riders some six seconds off the winner's team. And that means he has lost just five seconds to Roglic and only two seconds to Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos).
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Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) was 34th, at 10 seconds. And Sam Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) finished 68th at 16 seconds.
The result for Roche means he is set up nicely for the overall. And with five lumpy stages to come it is a course that can suit him.
Bennett will be looking to take a stage win the sprints and continue his run of winning at least once in every stage race he has ridden this year.
Ryan Mullen will be on team duties in the week ahead though the final stage is a TT on a flat course of just over 16km and could really suit the Irish champion.
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