Israel Start-Up Nation was in the mix, fighting for victory, on stage 1 of Tour de Romandie with Patrick Bevin sprinting to third place in the reduced bunch sprint. He’s now seventh overall.

With a challenging loop to be covered four times, it wasn’t a given that today’s first road stage of the race would end in a sprint. As expected, the peloton split up on the climbs and on the final 20 km, several riders tried to breakaway. However, nobody succeeded and ultimately, it all ended in a sprint.

The ISN riders did very well to put Bevin in an optimal position in final kilometers and the strong Kiwi put on a good sprint to make podium as Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) took the win. ISN team leader Michael Woods finished in the first group as well, crossing the line in 35th place to keep his GC ambitions intact.

Patrick Bevin: “The plan changed in the last 20 km and I had both Reto [Hollenstein] and Alex [Dowsett] to put me in a position to sprint. Unfortunately, I let myself get pushed around a bit in the last few hundred meters and really lost a lot of speed as the sprint opened up. Third is a nice result with the sprint field here today.”