On the second day of the Tour de Romandie, the longest section of this year's event awaited the riders with 194.6 kilometres. The last mountain classification was 75 kilometres before the finish. However, a few more metres of climbing awaited on the final kilometres - including a short climb on the last kilometre. The day's victory in the sprint went to Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike) ahead of Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) and Artem Shmidt (INEOS Greandiers).
Matthew Brennan takes the overall lead
Without a team-mate, the Brit Brennan was in the front positions early on in the final kilometre, routinely jumping from rear wheel to rear wheel and pulling off his sprint around 250 metres before the finish. In the end, his lead was almost five bike lengths. Earlier this season, he had already attracted attention with two stage wins in the Tour of Catalonia.
With the time credit of ten seconds at the finish, Brennan also took over the overall lead from Samuel Watson (INEOS Grenadiers), who wore the yellow jersey during the stage after winning the prologue the day before. At 19 years old, Brennan is the youngest overall leader of the Tour de Romandie since Peter Sagan in 2010. The lead in the mountain classification was taken over by Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe).
Tour de Romandie 2025 - Stage 1 results
Stage 1: Münchenstein - Fribourg
Tour de Romandie 2025: Stage 1, Münchenstein - Fribourg
| Rnk. | Riders | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team Visma | Lease a Bike | 04:42:32 |
| 2 | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | +00:00:00 |
| 3 | INEOS Grenadiers | +00:00:00 |
| 4 | Intermarché - Wanty | +00:00:00 |
| 5 | Arkéa - B&B Hotels | +00:00:00 |
| 6 | Team Picnic PostNL | +00:00:00 |
How the 1st stage of the Tour de Romandie 2025 went
With the start in Münchenstein, the first attack immediately formed the leading group of the day consisting of Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe), Gerben Kuypers (Intermarché - Wanty), Enzo Paleni (Groupama - FDJ), Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl - Trek) and Silvan Dillier (Alpecin - Deceuninck). The maximum lead was just over four minutes. The breakaway riders had the chance to win the first mountain jersey of the tour - a total of four categorised climbs were on the day's programme. Kuypers secured the first two mountain classifications in the 3rd category ahead of Zwiehoff, before Zwiehoff broke away from his companions after around 100 kilometres on the Col des Pontins (2nd category) and secured the mountain points there.
Afterwards, only Kuypers was able to close the gap to Zwiehoff again - for Paleni, Ghebreigzabhier and Dillier, the escape was soon over. As Zwiehoff later also won the mountain classification in Chaumont (2nd category), the Essen-born rider was allowed to wear the mountain jersey on stage 2. 75 kilometres before the finish, the climb was also the last categorised climb of the day. Nevertheless, there were still a few waves waiting in the finale.
In the peloton, INEOS Grenadiers and Visma | Lease a Bike largely dictated the chase and continuously reduced the gap to the front runners. With 50 kilometres to go, the gap was still around 1:30 minutes. Zwiehoff and Kuypers' escape was over with 24 kilometres to go. The stage then belonged to the sprinters.
