Together with Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour de Romandie marks the end of the spring one-day Classics and the beginning of the stage races that dominate the summer months of the UCI WorldTour calendar.
The race was first held in 1947 to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of the Swiss Cycling Federation. It has held an important position on the professional racing calendar ever since. For many years it was a valuable warm-up race before the three-week long Giro d'Italia in May. Now it is a key indicator of form and ability for the Tour de France, with Cadel Evans, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome each winning the Tour de Romandie in 2011, 2012 and 2013 before triumphing in France two months later.
The 2015 Tour de Romandie will be held between Tuesday April 28 and Sunday May 3. Many riders who raced for victory in the Ardennes Classics will travel south to the French speaking region of Switzerland and fight for overall victory in the spectacular hills and mountains near Lake Geneva.
The 2015 race route covers a total of 711km during the six stages, with an opening 19.2km team time trial in the Vallée de Joux–Juraparc and a final decisive 17.3km individual time trial in Lausanne.
In between are stages for sprinters, attackers and climbers, with stage five from Fribourg to Champex-Lac likely to shake up the overall classification before the final time trial. The 166km stage is relatively short but includes four first category climbs, with the finish at an altitude of 1493m.
The mixed but balanced route of the Tour de Romandie always brings out the best in the riders, with the overall winner both a good climber and strong time trialist. In 2014 Britain's Chris Froome emerged as the overall winner despite illness before the start. He dominated the final 18.5km time trial in Neuchâtel to take the lead from Simon Spilak of Slovenia and win by 28 seconds. Portugal's Rui Costa was third overall at 1:32.
Local hero Michael Albasini captured three stages thanks to his ability to climb and sprint after a hard stage, while Michal Kwiatkowski showed his potential by netting the opening time trial. Five months later the young Polish rider went on to win the road race at the UCI Road World Championships.
Mathias Frank of the IAM Cycling team was the best Swiss rider in 2014, finishing fourth overall. The IAM Cycling team will proudly fly the flag for Switzerland in the 2015 UCI WorldTour and will no doubt be looking for success in its home stage race.