FINAL KM: Tour de Romandie, St. 2, Tour of Chongming Island St. 1

A Tour de Romandie breakaway success in Switzerland and a chaotic Shanghai sprint at the Tour of Chongming Island.

Tour de Romandie Stage 2: Delémont to Yverdon-les-Bains, 173.9km

A lumpy day that should have been one for the sprinters finished with a victory for the break-of-the-day, taken by who else but Lotto Soudal’s Thomas de Gendt. The peloton rolled over the line some two minutes later with Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) sprinting to grab second place from AG2R La Mondiale’s Samuel Dumoulin. The GC remains unchanged, Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) goes into Stage three’s mountain time trial a sliver of a second ahead of BMC’s Rohan Dennis with Geraint Thomas (Sky) in third at +0:04secs.

Video:

Thomas De Gendt is a glorious stallion.

— nyvelocity (@nyvelocity) April 26, 2018

I wanted to post a pic of my victory today and say some motivating words about the team effort and the big help i got @VCampenaerts but instead i’ll show you for whom i am suffering so much. My 2 biggest supporters. They see daddy only a few days a year. Every victory is for them pic.twitter.com/tDnPL702IP

— Thomas De Gendt (@DeGendtThomas) April 26, 2018

A jubilant Breakaway King announced he has a new target to aim for

🗣️ @DeGendtThomas (@Lotto_Soudal ): ”We were planning this 2 weeks ago. I want to win stage in every WT race.”#TDR2018 #TourdeRomandie pic.twitter.com/KDzryXhxWs

— Brain on Wheels 🚲 (@BrainOnWheels) April 26, 2018

Watch out Tirrenno-Adriatico, Tour Down Under and Itzulia Basque Country. He’s making his plans right now – using WhatsApp if his post stage interview is anything to go by.

Nathan Brown (EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale) started the day just 26 seconds down and certainly gave the GC guys pause for thought when he made it into the break.

#TDR2018 @natebrown0707 reaction:

“Once I lost contact with him, I still had 3’50 on bunch. If I stayed away, I would still take the yellow jersey. I left it all out there. They got me at 2km. It for sure stings a little, but gives me confidence that I have good form.” (4/5) pic.twitter.com/J55vfhXXWU

— EF Education First – Drapac p/b Cannondale (@Ride_Argyle) April 26, 2018

Skills…

View this post on Instagram

Straight lining it and avoiding cobbles where possible. #Repost @photogomezsport with @get_repost ・・・ Menos mal que es una isleta pequeña 😅. Innumerables veces vemos a los corredores en los últimos kilómetros de la etapa, ir a fuego por las calles y vías de los pueblos y este es un claro ejemplo. Hay veces en las que es más fácil seguir en tu trazada y creerte un piloto de motocross, que cambiarla y poder dar lugar a una caída de lo más peligrosa… aunque he de decir que incluso yo me he tapado los ojos más de una vez 🙈

A post shared by Alex Dowsett (@alexdowsett) on Apr 26, 2018 at 12:33pm PDT

Full race report at Cycling News

Race website Twitter #TdR2018

Tour of Chongming Island Stage 1: Chongming Xincheng Park, 111.5km

Two crashes in the finale – the last with about 250m to go – left many of the favourites out of contention and a select group to battle for victory. Swiftest of these was Giorgia Bronzini (Cylance) with Kelly Druyts (Doltcini-Van Eyck Sport) and Silvia Persico (Valcar PBM) rounding out the podium in second and third respectively.

Video from the Wiggle High5 team. Check out their Instagram account too, they’re posting up a storm.

The peoples champion Giorgia Bronzini, and one very happy DS…

YESS! WE DID IT! thanks for believe in me @CylanceCycling! Amazing girls and staff! pic.twitter.com/PZokHLf8d0

— Giorgia Bronzini (@GiorgiaBronzini) April 26, 2018

The one nice thing from all the chaos was to see the people’s campionessa, @GiorgiaBronzini take her first win for the year! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 #bravissima #chongming #peopleschamp #wwt

— Annette Edmondson (@NettieEdmo) April 26, 2018

Before start the race I promised to my @CylanceCycling girls we will all wear a wig if we win the 1st stage 🤦🏻‍♂️😂🤣 @UCIWomenCycling pic.twitter.com/YsoPochJTR

— Manel Lacambra (@lacambramanel) April 27, 2018

The aftermath…

Brought everything home except for my @Garmin If anybody finds him, please let me know 🙏 pic.twitter.com/YmTtmpFRCR

— Sarah Roy (@Sar_Roy) April 26, 2018

Oefffff, landing on the asfalt is never the best way to get off the bike 🙁 but kirsten vs asfalt 1-0 💪🏼 and a big thanks for the help during the bonisprints and final from @WiggleHigh5 teammies! pic.twitter.com/uYE9wWY3ot

— Kirsten Wild (@kirsten_wild) April 26, 2018

Wiggle High5’s Lucy Garner looking resplendent in polka dots

🔴@Lucygarner94 takes the polka dot jersey as leader of the Mountain Classification at Tour of #Chongming Island🇨🇳after stage 1. #UCIWWT pic.twitter.com/lFXV5ejmXn

— UCI_WWT (@UCI_WWT) April 26, 2018

All those KOM points count, even the bridges.

#UCIWWT day today with Stage 1 of Chongming Island Tour.

Yes, that KOM is on a bridge.

Route: https://t.co/8HApWGvxqn pic.twitter.com/pi3gjyjgTL

— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) April 26, 2018

Just in case you were wondering why the UCI-WWT twitter account was behind the times. It’s not that easy live tweeting from China.