Bahrain Victorious showed its strength on the toughest day of the Tour de Romandie, as Damiano Caruso took an excellent 3rd place atop Thyon 2000, the finish of this edition’s queen stage, won by Adam Yates (UAE) ahead of Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ).

After yesterday’s good performance in the time-trial, where he was 6th, Damiano Caruso put on another outstanding performance on the 161.6km course, with start in Sion and unrolling in the Rhône valley where the peloton tackled a total of over 4300 meters of climbing. 

As expected, stage 4 was meant to decide the Tour de Romandie GC, with the main contenders battling especially on the final brutal climb of 20.9 km at 7.6% made even more challenging from the harsh weather conditions.

“I knew the last climb very well” The Italian climber explains “It’s very long therefore it was vital to manage the effort at the best. First of all, I want to thank my teammates, who did a great job of keeping me well-protected all day long. I arrived at this last climb in the best way.

I did it well, and in the final, I had the strength to approach the finish improving my performance and sprinting for the 3rd place. That means I’m also 3rd GC, and it gave me particular satisfaction because after Il Giro di Sicilia, I wanted to show that my condition is good. Moreover, it gives me morale ahead of the Giro and more confidence towards this big appointment.”

Damiano Caruso sits in 3rd place overall with only one stage to go. 

“All in all a good day today. It’s not finished until tomorrow but at the moment is going quite well.” Bahrain Victorious Sports Director Neil Stephens comments “It was a really good stage on the top of the mountains, in bad weather conditions. A very hard day for a hard man. We’re happy with Damiano‘s result and the team’s performance too.”

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