Tour de Romandie 2014 – Prologue preview

By David Hunter

The race opens with a 5.57km ride around Ascona.

There aren’t too many corners, so it should favour the proper TT riders.

Tony Martin is the obvious choice but the German has never won a race of this length, his shortest is 9.2km in the 2013 Tirreno.

Rohan Dennis is very good in this discipline, he was 2nd in the 7km prologue in the Criterium International. He will expect a fast time.

His countryman, Michael Hepburn, arrives with a growing reputation and a big focus on this stage.

As usual, the big riders go out last. Well, most of them do.

It is interesting that Van Garderen, Peraud and Kwiatkowski all go out early. I’ve checked the weather forecast and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious change in the wind or rain. Do the teams know something we don’t?

Also going out the near the same time is Danny Van Poppel. The talented young Trek rider loves a prologue and was 2nd in the Tour of Luxembourg prologue in 2013. He was called into the team at the last minute and could surprise everyone with a quick time.

Prediction time…

I will take the brave decision of going against Tony Martin and I think we’ll see a battle between the 2 Aussies. I’ll go for Michael Hepburn, but they’ll only be 1 or 2 seconds in it.

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