Tejay van Garderen was among the favourites for the Tour de Romandie, but one corner into the prologue and his race was in tatters. A heavy crash left him bruised, grazed and completely out of contention – crossing more than three minutes slower than Kwiatkowski. There was a slight ironic twist as the American had bemoaned the lack of a lengthy time trial when this year’s Criterium du Dauphine route was announced.

Just saw the route for this years Criterium du Dauphine. what happened to time trials? they don’t seem to exist this year.

— Tejay van Garderen (@tejay_van) March 3, 2014

After his struggle on this prologue however, he must be glad he had just 5.5km to ride. There is still much to gain from the remainder of the race for both the American and his team-mates, but overall victory is now highly unlikely to be one of them. Van Garderen summed his predicament up perfectly on Twitter – so much to lose, so little to gain indeed.

Prologues, so much to lose so little to gain.

— Tejay van Garderen (@tejay_van) April 29, 2014