Prologue woe for Euskaltel in Romandie

The Tour de Romandie kicked off today with a 3,3km prologue in Lausanne, and Euskaltel's main men for the discipline failed to shine.

 Mikel Astarloza, pre-ban a man to be reckoned with in the discipline, was the team's top finisher in a distant 55th place, 17 seconds down on winner Geraint Thomas. Like many of the top riders though, Astarloza suffered under the changing weather conditions and in fact placed ahead of riders like Karpets, De Gendt, Evans, Hesjedal, Kreuziger, Brajkovic and Peraud. The course in the capital of the Vaud canton was of course not best suited to the team, and everyone bar the Pasajes-native finished outside the top 100.

Prologue results:

• (1, Geraint Thomas (Sky), 3:29:00
• 55, Mikel Astarloza, 0:17
• 113, Gorka Verdugo, 0:24
• 129, Jorge Azanza, 0:26
• 131, Ricardo García, 0:26
• 136, Romain Sicard, 0:27
• 142, Alan Pérez, 0:28
• 145, Egoi Martínez, 0:29
• 151, Mikel Landa, 0:31

Full results here.