Tour de Romandie: Chris Froome stays third as Thibaut Pinot wins

Chris Froome remains third overall going into Sunday’s final day of the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland after France’s Thibaut Pinot won stage five and Russia’s Ilnur Zakarin took the overall race lead on Saturday.

Pinot (FDJ.fr) attacked out of an elite group of favourites with just over 5km to the summit finish at Champex-Lac remaining and hung on to win by seven seconds from runner-up Zakarin (Katusha), who had set off in pursuit with 3km to go.

Froome (Team Sky) finished 20 seconds later in the next group on the road in seventh place, but previous race leader Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEdge) was dropped earlier in the climb and has plummeted down the standings.

Pinot and Zakarin picked up 10 and six bonus seconds respectively for their efforts, which was enough to lift Zakarin from fifth overall to first, with Pinot rising from 19th to second place, six seconds down.

Froome stays third but is now 14 seconds adrift of the yellow jersey, six seconds better off than he had started the day.

Despite missing out on the race lead, Froome remains favourite to claim overall victory given that Sunday’s final stage is a 17.3km time trial and the Briton is one of the best time-triallists in the field.

The other Briton in contention, Simon Yates (Orica-GreenEdge), who started the day fourth, was dropped out of the main group around 4.5km from the finish and has consequently fallen to seventh in the general classification, 1min 1sec back.

Stage five result

1 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr, 4:38:54

2 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha, +7secs

3 Romain Bardet (Fra) Ag2r-La Mondiale, +20

4 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, same time

5 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha, st

6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo, st

7 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, st

8 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Etixx – Quick-Step, +53

9 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, st

10 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Astana, st

General classification

1 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha, 18:13:00

2 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr, +6secs

3 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, +14

4 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha, +19

5 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, +54

6 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Etixx – Quick-Step, +1:01

7 Simon Yates (GB) Orica-GreenEdge, same time

8 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, +1:04

9 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Astana, st

10 Yuri Trofimov (Rus) Katusha, +1:06