Slovenian ITT champion Jan Tratnik won the opening TT of the 2019 Tour de Romandie in Neuchâtel. On the short, but technical 3.8km course Tratnik beat Primoz Roglic and Bohli, with just a second that separated them.
“It was really special today” Jan comments on is his first World Tour win and also the first one with Bahrain Merida jersey.
“After a hard first part of the season with many races, I was quite tired, but also motivated ahead of this race because I knew that there were two time trials. I tried to focus at 100 percent and I came here with the aim to do everything to take the win. Today I took my first World Tour victory and I’m really happy”.
Jan Tratnik is also the first overall leader of the Tour de Romandie and today’s result is the most prestigious of his career so far.
“If yesterday someone asked me if I could win, I would have said that I will take some good results, but not the victory. I’ve surprised myself, but on this kind of course I was sure that I could take an important result. I liked with explosive prologue. My goal was to give the maximum until the top of the climb and then it was downhill and flat to the finish.
I improved in the time trial thanks to the team to. We focussed on ITT and also the best equipment that our partners supply us help a lot to achieve such results”
2019 Tour de Romandie Prologue Results:
- Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Merida) at 5’06”
- Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo-Visma) at 1″
- Tom Bohli (UAE Team Emirates) s.t.
- Tony Martin (Team Jumbo-Visma) at 4″
- Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) s.t.
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