Tour de Romandie: Chris Froome loses time to rivals in prologue

Geraint Thomas finished fourth but Chris Froome lost time to his rivals as Spain's Ion Izagirre won the Tour de Romandie prologue on Tuesday.

Izagirre (Movistar) stopped the clock on a 3.95km course in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 5min 33sec, which was six seconds faster than runner-up Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and seven seconds ahead of third-placed Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky).

Thomas was also seven seconds down, but Froome (Team Sky) could only finish 26 seconds back in 60th.

His time was 10 seconds slower than Nairo Quintana (Movistar), 15 seconds down on Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing), 14 seconds behind Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) and 20 seconds adrift of Dumoulin.

Froome was, however, four seconds quicker than defending champion Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) and 11 seconds ahead of Richie Porte (BMC Racing).

The six-day Swiss stage race continues on Wednesday with a 166.9km rolling first stage from La Chaud-de-Fonds to Moudon. Read more about the route in our race guide.

Prologue result and general classification

1 Ion Izagirre (Esp) Movistar, 5:33

2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +6sec

3 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Team Sky, +7

4 Geraint Thomas (GB) Team Sky, same time

5 Gorka Izagirre (Esp) Movistar, +8

6 Moreno Moser (Ita) Cannondale, +9

7 Reto Hollenstein (Sui) IAM Cycling, +11

8 Louis Vervaeke (Bel) Lotto Soudal, st

9 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing, st

10 Martijn Keizer (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +12

Selected other

60 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, +26

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