This is only Florian Lipowitz's third time at the start of a WorldTour race. But this Tour de Romandie comes just in time for the 23-year-old. Because his Grand Tour debut is a few days away. The youngster showed that he is in excellent shape during today's queen stage.
The route from Saillon to Leysin was peppered with 3,500 metres of climbing spread over just 151 kilometres. BORA - hansgrohe has started the weekend in a good position: ahead of the stage, Aleks Vlasov is in 3rd place overall, just 10 seconds behind the yellow jersey. Florian Lipowitz follows 22 seconds behind in 6th place. Lipowitz laid the foundations for this rank at the first mountain top finish, where he already impressed with a 4th place, and a very solid individual time trial on the following day.
Back to the climbing spectacle: When the group of favourites consisted of only 10 riders in the last 5 kilometres, BORA - hansgrohe was still there with Florian Lipowitz and Aleks Vlasov. Then the first attacks cam, but Lipowitz followed. He then opened the finale by attacking himself at the 3km mark. Only Carapaz and Rodriguez were able to follow - one kilometre later, Carapaz launched a decisive counter-attack.
Lipowitz cleverly stayed on Rodriguez's rear wheel in the headwind passage to save energy and also to reduce the gap to Aleks Vlasov, who followed just a few seconds behind. In the last 500 metres, he still had enough reserves to jump to the front of Carapaz. It was an uphill sprint that must have made the leader nervous. Metre by metre, Lipowitz came closer. In the end, the finish line came too soon - only a little was missing for victory on the queen stage of the Tour de Romandie 2024!
"I never thought that I can climb with the best guys here! But from the start I had good legs. Even though I didn't catch Carapaz, I'm super happy with today's performance."
This is only Florian Lipowitz's third time at the start of a WorldTour race. And it was almost enough for his first WorldTour victory. Even if the stage win still has to wait, he certainly made an impression. And there is already an entry in his palmarès: ahead of tomorrow's final stage, he is in third place overall - it would be the first WorldTour podium for the youngster.