Tour de Romandie #4: Berhane confirms good form
The Tour de Romandie came to a conclusion today with Primoz Roglic (Team LottoNL-Jumbo) winning the final stage. Richie Porte (BMC Racing) won the Tour de Romandie overall. Natnael Berhane was the best placed rider from Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka placing 23rd overall.
The final 18km individual time trial stage was the big GC deciding stage of this year’s Tour de Romandie. It was a tough course with an 8km climb followed by a fast and technical descent in Lausanne. Our African Team riders all fared strongly on the uphill section of the course, clocking some strong intermediate times. The descent though suited the bigger GC contenders better and it was them that populated the top stage placings.
Natnael Berhane was our best on the day, placing 37th on the stage at 1’35” behind the overall stage winner. Berhane also delivered our best performance of the week when he finished 4th on stage one. Youcef Reguigui gave us another top 10 stage result when he sprinted to 6th on stage 3. We know look towards the Giro d’Italia as our next major upcoming appointment.
Alex Sans Vega – Sport Director
We had hoped for more from the Tour de Romandie as a team, but we still leave with two top 10 stage placing’s from the 3 road stages. We rode aggressively from the front and the guys showed good strength on the key stages, even when the weather was not typically suited to our African riders. As the first all-African team at a World Tour race, we can take a lot from this week and I think the guys will have renewed confidence after this Romandie.
Tour de Romandie - Stage 5 (ITT) - Lausanne › LausanneStage | 1 | ROGLIC Primoz | Team LottoNL-Jumbo | 24:58 |
| 2 | PORTE Richie | BMC Racing Team | 0:08 |
| 3 | VAN GARDEREN Tejay | BMC Racing Team | 0:34 |
| 37 | BERHANE Natnael | Dimension Data | 1:35 |
| 49 | TEKLEHAIMANOT Daniel | Dimension Data | 1:51 |
| 54 | KUDUS Merhawi | Dimension Data | 2:00 |
| 55 | DEBESAY Mekseb | Dimension Data | 2:07 |
| 60 | VENTER Jaco | Dimension Data | 2:11 |
| 103 | REGUIGUI Youcef | Dimension Data | 3:19 |
| 105 | THOMSON Jay Robert | Dimension Data | 3:20 |
| 119 | NIYONSHUTI Adrien | Dimension Data | 3:56 |
Tour de Romandie - General ClassificationGeneral | 1 | PORTE Richie | BMC Racing Team | 17:16:00 |
| 2 | YATES Simon | ORICA-Scott | 0:21 |
| 3 | ROGLIC Primoz | Team LottoNL-Jumbo | 0:26 |
| 23 | BERHANE Natnael | Dimension Data | 2:23 |
| 42 | KUDUS Merhawi | Dimension Data | 3:58 |
| 67 | DEBESAY Mekseb | Dimension Data | 14:57 |
| 74 | TEKLEHAIMANOT Daniel | Dimension Data | 17:13 |
| 89 | VENTER Jaco | Dimension Data | 25:45 |
| 93 | REGUIGUI Youcef | Dimension Data | 28:10 |
| 120 | THOMSON Jay Robert | Dimension Data | 46:32 |
| 128 | NIYONSHUTI Adrien | Dimension Data | 58:07 |
