Saturday 30 April 2016 18:20, UK
Chris Froome salvaged his Tour de Romandie by escaping to a solo victory on stage four as Nairo Quintana retained the leader’s yellow jersey.
Froome's challenge for a third overall title at the six-day race collapsed on Thursday when he lost 17min 30sec on stage two, but he bounced back on Saturday by attacking from the peloton with about 35km to go and hanging on for his third win of the season.
The chasing pack crossed the line at a rain-drenched Villars-sur-Ollon four seconds later, with Ion Izagirre (Movistar) finishing second and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) third.
Quintana (Movistar) followed in fifth and is now 19 seconds ahead of second-placed Pinot and 23 seconds ahead of third-placed Izagirre with only one stage remaining.
Froome said: "It has been a tough race so far, so to come and win the queen stage today, especially attacking so far out, it's a great feeling. For us as a team, to get a victory here, it's nice not to come away empty-handed."
Froome attacked on the penultimate climb of the day alongside Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) and the duo swiftly caught up with the last two members of the day's initial breakaway, Bob Jungels (Etixx - Quick-Step) and Pavel Kochetkov (Katusha).
Jungels and Kochetkov fell away at the foot of the final climb, and Froome subsequently dropped Van Garderen with about 7.5km remaining to set up the third Tour de Romandie stage win of his career.
Back down the road, Pinot attacked several times in a bid to drop Quintana, but the Colombian never looked in danger of being distanced and now only has to avoid crashing on Sunday's final stage, which should end in a sprint, to seal overall victory.
Froome added: "I thought if I am going to get away, it's going to have to be quite a long way from the finish.
"Tejay van Garderen came with me and the two of us worked together well. He had the objective for the general classification and I had my sights set on winning the stage, so it worked well for both of us. I'm just really happy it worked out in the end."
Stage four result
1 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, 4:44:24
2 Ion Izagirre (Esp) Movistar, +4sec
3 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr, same time
4 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha, st
5 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, st
General classification
1 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar
2 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr, +19sec
3 Ion Izagirre (Esp) Movistar, +23
4 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha, +26
5 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +57
