Tour de Romandie: Fraile brings sprint win to Astana

"I am so happy with this win. After the classics I did not feel great, but today everything went well and I managed to do a good stage. In general, our team was super today, we did a strong race. After all these climbs we still had many riders in the leading group and my teammates did a big job for me. In the final part of the stage I've realized our group can come to the finish for a sprint, so Dario Cataldo and Jakob Fuglsang worked hard to chase all attacks and to bring me in front. I knew, Sonny Colbrelli was my biggest rival today since he is a very fast guy. So, I followed his wheel and started my sprint with around 300 meters to go. It was a good decision, since at the last 100 meters there was a small uphill. Anyway, this victory brings me and, I think, the whole team a good motivation before the next stages. As I saw, Jakob is in a good form and we will try to help him to reach a high result here," explained Omar Fraile after finish.

After yesterday's prologue, today the peloton has started the first normal stage from Fribourg to Delémont with a total distance of 166,6 km. In this nice day in Switzerland, the riders passed a hilly route with four categorized climbs, the last one with just 18 km to go.

The French Alexis Gougeard was the last rider from the early break to be caught already in the final few kilometers. There were a number of attacks from the leading group of 55 riders inside the last 3-4 km, but finally, all the favorites came together to the finish line in Delémont. Omar Fraile did a smart move in front of the group to attack with just 300 meters to go and to take his second win this season after a nice success at the 5th stage of the Itzulia Basque Country.

Tanel Kangert, Jakob Fuglsang, Jesper Hansen and Dario Cataldo all finished inside the first leading group.

After the prologue and today's stage 1 the Slovenian Primoz Roglic took the lead in the general classification of the Tour de Romandie. Omar Fraile is, provisionally, the best Astana rider, sitting on the 22nd place in the overall, 19 seconds behind the leader.

Tomorrow, Omar Fraile will start stage 2 of the race in the green jersey of the point classification leader.

Stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie will be held tomorrow: 173,9 km from Delémont to Yverdon-les-Bains.