No regrets for Simon Yates after second place at the Tour de Romandie
Brit wins the queen stage but is pipped to overall win by Richie Porte in final time trial
Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) insists he has no regrets after being narrowly beaten to overall victory at the Tour de Romandie by Richie Porte (BMC Racing).
Yates won the queen stage of the six-stage Swiss race, beating Porte on the Leysin climb for his third victory of the season, having already won a stage at Paris-Nice and the GP Miguel Indurain.
But Porte overhauled the 24-year-old Brit’s 19-second overall advantage on the final stage time trial in Lausanne to claim victory as Yates had to settle for second place on the final podium.
Simon Yates won the queen stage of the Tour de Romandie, but was beaten to the overall win by Richie Porte (pic – Sirotti)
Echoing the thoughts of DS Neil Stephens, however, Yates insists he could have done more as Porte – the stronger time triallist – triumphed in Lausanne.
Writing on Instagram, he said: “I gave everything in the TT and ended up 2nd overall #noregrets.
“Congratulations to Richie who was clearly the strongest in the race! I’ll take a short break now before rebuilding for the Dauphine.”
Yates was initially due to ride the Giro d’Italia with twin brother Adam, but his programme was changed late on following injury to another of Orica-Scott’s rising stars Johan Esteban Chaves.
He will now ride the Tour de France, with his performance’s in Romandie certainly encouraging for a big summer to come.
Stephens said of Yates’ performance: “He put out great wattage and in the end there wasn’t any more he could do. He can walk away feeling satisfied.
Yates wore yellow for the final stage time trial, but his 12th place finish was not enough to stop Richie Porte claiming overall victory (pic – Sirotti)
“He didn’t make any mistakes and in the second half of the time trial he didn’t lose any time at all so he was just beaten by a better rider today.
“We came here hoping to do well on the GC so to actually run second is fantastic. The reality is we have achieved a lot more than we could have hoped for this week.”
Yates was one of four Brits to finish the Tour de Romandie, with Chris Froome (Team Sky) also starting to ramp up his Tour de France preparations.
Both Yates and Porte will be in action at the Tour de France this summer (pic – Sirotti)
While he was not in the running on the queen stage, he did finish fifth in the first road stage, and completed the race with a top-ten place in the final time trial on his way to 18th overall.
Alex Dowsett (Movistar) was second in the prologue, but the final time trial stage which featured the climb of the Lac de Sauvablin was not suited to him – not his ‘cup of TT’ as he Tweeted.
Finally, Lotto-Soudal neo-pro James Shaw finished a UCI WorldTour stage race for the first time, claiming 59th overall – just inside the WorldTour points cut-off.
Tour de Romandie 2017: final general classificiation
1) Richie Porte (AUS) – BMC Racing – 17.16.00hrs
2) Simon Yates (GBR) – Orica-Scott +21”
3) Primoz Roglic (SVN) – LottoNL-Jumbo +26”
4) Fabio Felline (ITA) – Trek-Segafredo +51”
5) Ion Izagirre (ESP) – Bahrain-Merida +1.03
6) Tejay van Garderen (USA) – BMC Racing +1.16
7) Wilco Kelderman (NED) – Team Sunweb +1.21
8) Bob Jungels (LUX) – QuickStep Floors +1.22
9) Jesus Herrada (ESP) – Movistar – ST
10) Emanuel Buchmann (GER) – Bora-hansgrohe +1.24
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