Watson narrowly beats Oliveira by three tenths of a second in Tour de Romandie prologue, Evenepoel takes eighth

The Tour de Romandie prologue got underway at 3:13 p.m. with Lennert Van Eetvelt starting for Lotto, but early attention was mainly focused on defending champion Maikel Zijlaard. The Dutch rider from Tudor had won the prologue last year and was fast again this time. He clocked just under 4 minutes and 37 seconds, but Iván Romeo of Movistar went half a second quicker.

With the Spaniard in the hot seat, GC contenders like João Almeida (UAE) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) were among the early starters, though they were never really in the hunt for the stage win. As expected, the time gaps remained small, but we did see a new leader. Ivo Oliveira, riding for UAE, smashed Romeo’s time by two full seconds. Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) slotted into provisional third, between Romeo and Zijlaard.

Attention then turned to the big time trial specialists, with world champion Remco Evenepoel and home favorite Stefan Küng starting close together. The Belgian from Soudal Quick-Step fell short of the day’s best time, finishing just over four seconds behind Oliveira in fifth. Küng posted a slightly faster time and moved into the virtual fifth spot.

With about thirty riders still to start the 3.44-kilometer prologue, Julien Vermote suffered a hard crash. The Belgian rider from Visma | Lease a Bike was able to continue, but a serious time was no longer in the cards. Watson, however, was right on pace. The Brit from INEOS Grenadiers flew to the hot seat with a time of 4 minutes, 33 seconds, and 30 hundredths of a second, edging Oliveira by just 28 hundredths.

A tense finale followed, with fifteen riders still to finish after Watson’s run. All eyes were on home rider Jan Christen of UAE Team Emirates - XRG. However, the Swiss youngster came up short, allowing the Leeds-born Brit to claim victory. It marked Watson’s first WorldTour win and the second pro victory of his career after a stage win at the 2024 Tour de Wallonie.