Romain Gregoire Wins Stage 1 of Tour de Suisse
The 2025 Tour de Suisse started Sunday with stage 1 – a 129.4-kilometer stage in rolling hills terrain on a round stretch route from Küssnacht to Küssnacht, which would feature two Category 3 climbs and two Category 2 climbs. The second of two prelude races to the Tour de France, the Tour de Suisse attracts significant and noteworthy cyclists, who are expected to deliver noteworthy performances on the roads of France, come the Tour de France in July.
The line-up for Criterium du Dauphine 2025 included Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Ben O’Connor (Jayco-Alula), Marc Hirschi (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea B & B Hotels), Geraint Thomas (Ineos-Grenadiers), and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling Team). Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) would not start the race, as he had been suffering from illness in recent weeks.
Stage 1 started in Küssnacht, a town located south of Zurich, on the borders of Lake Lucerne. The weather conditions were cloudy with temperatures around twenty-seven degrees Celsius. Thunderstorms were expected late in the afternoon.
The stage got off to a fast start and the initial kilometers were very dynamic, as they were dominated by multiple brief attacking efforts and splits in the peloton.
Swiss rider Jan Christen crashed hard. The UAE Team Emirates rider got back on his bike, but he was suffering from neck pain, and his bike clothes were torn to pieces.
After twenty-five kilometers of fast racing, Julian Alaphilippe had formed a small gap with Felix Engelhardt (Team Jayco-Alula). The duo was fifty seconds ahead of the main peloton when 95 kilometers remained, but with a chase group with a deficit of twenty seconds as a group of riders was trying to make the leap to Alaphilippe and Engelhardt.
Twenty-five riders made the leap to Alaphilippe and Engelhardt. The twenty-five riders in the front group worked well together and other noteworthy riders in the group included Hugo House, Lorenzo Fortunato, Warren Barguil (Team Picnic-PostNL), Ben O’Connor, Luke Durbridge, Lennard Kämna (Lidl-Trek), Ben Swift (Ineos-Grenadiers), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious), and Felix Grossschartner (UAE Team Emirates). The group had an advantage of more than three minutes when eighty kilometers remained.
The front group had an advantage of 03:40 minutes when sixty kilometers of the stage remained. It was still raining, and strong winds were blowing, while thunderstorms were building up in the distance.
The riders in the front group worked well together, but Kevin Vauquelin, Romain Gregoire, Bart Lemmen, and Julian Alaphilippe had left all other riders behind when fifteen kilometers of stage 1 remained, and the riders were approaching the summit. It was still raining, and spectators were cheering on the riders while wearing shorts and holding umbrellas above their heads. The rainy racing conditions did not appear to annoy the front quartet.
Romain Gregoire left his three fellow breakaway optimists behind on the descent and initiated a fast and dangerous downhill effort on the wet roads that featured many turns. Gregoire was nine seconds ahead of the chasers when five kilometers remained. What a courageous and impressive effort by the Frenchman.
Romain Gregoire fought hard all the way to the finish and crossed the finish line as winner of stage 1 of Tour de Suisse. Kevin Vauquelin finished second when he won a sprint from a small group twenty seconds later. Bart Lemmen completed the stage podium, while Julian Alaphilippe took fourth.
Ben O’Connor finished fifth and his general classification ambitions improved significantly as a result of his breakaway initiative, as other GC riders lost much time in their lackluster efforts on the wet roads of Switzerland.
Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for complete coverage from the 2025 Tour de Suisse.