The bad weather, a fast but demanding climb, an even faster downhill did not scare Rui Costa.
The world champion, despite the aching shoulder due to the crash in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, demonstrated that his legs have enough energies to sprint on the arrival of the 1st stage of Tour de Romandie (because of the bad weather condition, the course was reduced to 88,5 km, from Brigerbad to Sion), obtaining the 7th place (in photo Bettini, the sprint).
This result had an extra value if we consider that only a restricted group of 56 athletes pedaled in the head of the race after the last climb.

Victory for Albasini, yellow jersey still on Kwiatkowski shoulder, Rui Costa climbs the ranking to the 13th place, at 16″ to the Polish rider.

“Team performance in the stage was perfect, we tried to speed up the pace in the climb in order to select the group - sport director Matxin explained - Rui was feeling good, so he wanted to test himself on the climb: he was great, despite the problem to the shoulder.
This stage will give Rui a good morale, it is important for the resto of the race”.

STAGE RESULTS
1- Albasini 2h11’11″
2- Herrada s.t.
3- Navardauskas s.t.
4- Iglinskiy s.t.
7- Rui Costa s.t.

OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
1- Kwiatkowski 2h17’33″
2- Albasini 5″
3- Navardauskas s.t.
4- Herrada 6″
13- Rui Costa 16″