Tour de Romandie

The race is usually decided across three pressure points: the prologue or opening time trial, which establishes early gaps and often determines who controls the race; the queen stage, typically run over two or three categorized climbs in the Valais or Vaud Alps; and the final individual time trial, which has overturned GC positions as late as the last afternoon. Stages around Lake Geneva can splinter in wind, and the short overall length means that every minute lost is difficult to recover. Climbers who can time trial hold the advantage, but pure climbers can survive if they gain enough in the mountains. The race rewards tactical patience more than single-day aggression, and breakaways rarely survive on the hardest stages.