Küng denies the sprinters in Tour de Romandie snowy stage

Stefan Kung (BMC) got the better of Andriy Grivko (Astana) to win from the breakaway a weather-affected stage 2 at the Tour de Romandie.

Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) finished safely in the bunch, keeping his race lead by 8 seconds over Max Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors).

Bad weather saw the stage 2 start line relocated to Aigle with riders avoiding the originally planned descent from Champéry and covering 136km of the original 160.7km course.

With the race eventually underway, attacks quickly began to fly off the front of the peloton with Stefan Küng part of the successful move which saw four riders go clear after only 4km of racing.

The gap between the breakaway and the peloton continued to rise as they raced through the valley before it settled at around 5’40” after the first of three categorized climbs.

As the road continued to roll and a mix of snow and rain began to fall, the advantage of Küng’s group remained steady. As they hit the the slopes of the final categorized climb to Le Châtelard, the peloton had picked up the pace behind and the gap started to fall.

However, the four leading riders continued to work well together and as they crossed the finish line for the final 25km, they were still 3’00” ahead of the main bunch.

As the breakaway entered the closing kilometers, Küng and Andriy Grivko were pushing hard at the front of the group and with four kilometers to go, they were the last riders standing from the original breakaway.

Inside the final kilometer it was Küng who led the way with Grivko sitting firmly in his wheel. Küng led Grivko through the final left hand turn with 300m to go and started his sprint, holding on until the line and raising his hands in triumph.

“It’s amazing. I am really happy”, said Küng. “We talked about the possibility of today being a good day for the breakaway or a good day to try and make a move. The team then gave me the freedom to go for it. If you have this opportunity and you know the roads, I had the confidence in my condition and the weather was bad so it was the perfect day for me to try and do something.”

#TDR2017 Triunfa la fuga en Bulle: Kung (BMC) gana la 2ª etapa por delante de Grivko (AST). El pelotón termina a 20″. pic.twitter.com/bzOVKzpj1P

— Movistar Team (@Movistar_Team) 27 aprilie 2017

Tour de Romandie 2017 – stage 2 (Aigle – Bulle):

General classification after stage 2: