Tour de Romandie - Rohan Dennis: I'd like to keep the leader's jersey for as long as possible
Apr 28 2021 05:48 am CET
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Rohan Dennis has taken the victory of the prologue in the Tour of Romandie on a day that three riders of Ineos-Grenadiers occupied the first spots.
The prologue of the Swiss race was 4.05 kilometres long in Oron and Dennis completed it in five minutes and 26 seconds, being nine seconds faster than his teammates Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte. The fourth time was set by Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Remi Cavagna who was eleven seconds slower than the former Time Trial World Champion.
"It was full gas... Then full gas even more!" said Dennis at the end of the stage. "It was quite tricky to pace it, because there’s still a minute and a half uphill and there’s no way to get the extra speed unless you’ve got the power. That last 700-800m really hurt.
"I thought when I hit the climb that I had gone too slow, but on the climb it didn't feel like that, the last 400m seemed to go on forever. It was a tough little finish. The legs didn't feel good, if they didn't feel good I'd be concerned. it was a great day with first, second and third with G and Richie on the podium as well, it was perfect for us. Tomorrow is more of a sprint, so I'd like to keep the leader's jersey for as long as possible, but let's see how it goes with the big mountains on Saturday then the final day with the TT, but I think there's plenty of work for me to do for Richie and G."
The rider was having an eye on his contenders, particularly the current World Champion against the clock Filippo Ganna, who is also his teammate. "I knew I had to go out hard to stay in contention with riders like Filippo and the power guys and then hope that I could perform on the climb a little bit better than them," the Australian commented. "My tactic was to minimise the time on the flat and hit the hill as hard as I could. I didn't lose too much time to G and Richie on the climb and I'm pretty happy with my form.
"It's given me a lot of confidence for the final stage and shown I can do this in such a short time trial, with pure power, I think it's going to be a good week - especially after the last race when I was climbing pretty well, but plenty of work to do yet."
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