Euskaltel come up short in Romandie prologue

Despite the Tour de Romandie prologue's hilly nature, the climbers of Euskaltel failed to shine as the Swiss WorldTour stage race kicked off on Tuesday.

Unsurprisingly, Chris Froome of Sky proved the strongest, besting Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) by six seconds and Robert Kiserlovski (RadioShack) by seven more.

Igor Antón, coming off an encouraging showing in the last two Ardennes Classics last week, was the team's top man in 43rd, a full 48 seconds off the pace and behind overall contenders like the above-mentioned trio, Alejandro Valverde, Richie Porte, Rui Costa, Carlos Betancur, Rubén Plaza, Janez Brajkovic, Tiago Machado, Robert Gesink, Lieuwe Westra and Jean-Christophe Péraud. Still, though, it was enough to edge ahead of the likes of Ryder Hesjedal, Ivan Basso, Simon Spilak, Roman Kreuziger and Pierre Rolland.

Romain Sicard, still searching for the form of old, came in a decent 45th, while Mikel Landa, arguably in some of his worst shape in his young Euskaltel career, could only muster 138th on the day.

Results (full results here):

• (1, Chris Froome (Sky), 13:15)
• 43, Igor Antón, 0:48
• 45, Romain Sicard, 0:50
• 80, Garikoitz Bravo, 1:13
• 94, Peio Bilbao, 1:20
• 98, Mikel Astarloza, 1:23
• 128, Adrián Sáez, 1:44
• 132, Juan José Lobato, 1:45
• 138, Mikel Landa, 1:47