The Tour de Romandie queen stage was a day for the diesel riders who perform after huge fatigue. After a tough crash in the 2023 Tour de France opening stage it was the first win at a World Tour level for Richard Carapaz in an EF jersey. The Ecuadorian has previously proved himself on hard days and in Tour de Romandie stage 4 outperformed big names like Juan Ayuso, Adam Yates, Jai Hindley and Carlos Rodriguez, the latter of whom became the new GC leader.
It was the last mountain stage and the only remaining opportunity for the many GC riders within the Top 10 to make a difference. INEOS brought a stacked team to the race with E. Hayter, Arensman, Bernal, Castroviejo, O. Rodriguez and Sheffield but only Carlos Rodriguez had a real shot to win the GC as he started the day only 11 seconds behind the race leader Juan Ayuso.
It was one of the hardest races possible in only a 150km long stage, with Pavel Sivakov burning 3,758 kilojoules before the final climb. The intensity of 15.48 kj/kg/h for 3:30h meant that it was a really hard day, which made the gaps on Leysin (13.8 km, 6%) much bigger than expected despite it not being a particularly difficult climb. On the first climb of the day Ovronnaz (9.1 km, 9.5%) the best GC riders did it in 29:35 min, averaging 6.09 ᵉW/Kg, making the race extremely hard from the start. There was no footage, but on the Strava segment Ilan van Wilder and Lenny Martinez had a 30-second gap on Ovronnaz against Sivakov and Arensman. There must have been attacks from the GC riders to try and bridge to the breakaway.
The later climbs Les Rives and Les Gettes were paced at 5.7 ᵉW/Kg for 12 minutes each, adding more fatigue. The race was decided on Leysin which is irregular. Only the last 3 kilometres are hard enough to attack from the GC group and gain some time.
INEOS went all in on Leysin for Rodriguez with Castroviejo, Hayter, Arensman and Bernal shredding the tired GC group. The last breakaway survivor Clement Berthet was caught with 5.4 km to go and even a big-name rider like Jai Hindley was dropped on shallow gradients. It was a true test of fatigue as Florian Lipowitz with 3 km to go accelerated and distanced the race leader Ayuso. The 23-year-old German extended his contract with Bora-Hansgrohe a few days ago and is flying in Romandie.
Lipowitz, Carapaz and Rodriguez were together as the strongest climbers. Carapaz and Rodriguez in previous years have shown the ability to perform on hard stages, despite not having as high peak watts as other GC riders who were dropped today. Rodriguez won the 2023 Tour de France Stage 14 from a GC group where 12th place finisher Tom Pidcock lost 8:40 min, showing that the Spaniard performs well on tough days. In the end Carapaz attacked and looked set for an easy stage win but was almost caught in the last meters by Lipowitz, who waited for a long time in the wheel of Rodriguez, presumably asking for the green light to attack with teammate Vlasov just behind. Rodriguez lost 10 seconds but thanks to his results in the time trial and prologue became the new race leader, with Vlasov missing out on bonus seconds on Stage 2 and today.
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It was not a high ᵉW/Kg final climb due to the fatigue and the shallow / irregular nature of the climb. Carapaz averaged on Leysin 5.91 ᵉW/Kg for 30:23 min but in the steepest part (3.05 km, 8.30%) from 4.5 to 1.5 km to go he did 6.63 ᵉW/Kg for 8:10 min. Lipowitz and Rodriguez averaged 6.50 ᵉW/Kg in this segment while A. Yates and Ayuso who cracked did only 6.06 ᵉW/Kg.