The 2013 Tour de Romandie was the 67th running of the Tour de Romandie cycling stage race. The race consisted of six stages, beginning with a prologue stage in Le Châble on 23 April and concluded with another individual time trial, in Geneva, on 28 April. It was the fourteenth race of the 2013 UCI World Tour season.
The race was won by Great Britain's Chris Froome of Team Sky,[1] who led the race from start to finish – the first time that a Team Sky rider had led from start-to-finish[2] – after winning the opening prologue in Le Châble, extending his advantage towards the end of the race. Ultimately, Froome won the general classification by 54 seconds over runner-up Simon Špilak (Team Katusha),[3] who was the winner of the race's queen stage – the fourth stage – to Les Diablerets, ahead of Froome.[4] The podium was completed by Rui Costa of the Movistar Team, who finished third for the second year in a row.[5] Costa finished 55 seconds behind Špilak, and one minute 49 seconds behind Froome.
In the race's other classifications, Blanco Pro Cycling's Wilco Kelderman was the winner of the white jersey for the young rider classification as he was the highest placed rider born in 1988 or later, finishing in fifth place overall after taking the jersey from FDJ's Thibaut Pinot during the final time trial. Matthias Brändle of IAM Cycling won the green jersey for the most points gained in intermediate sprints, while the pink jersey for the King of the Mountains classification went to Marcus Burghardt of the BMC Racing Team.[6] The teams classification was won by Team Sky for the second year in a row, after placing Richie Porte inside the top ten overall as well as Froome.[2]
As the Tour de Romandie was a UCI World Tour event, all UCI ProTeams were invited automatically and obligated to send a squad. Originally, eighteen ProTeams were scheduled to be invited to the race, with two other squads – Team Europcar and IAM Cycling – given wildcard places,[7] and as such, would have formed the event's 20-team peloton. Team Katusha subsequently regained their ProTour status after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.[8][9] With Team Katusha not originally invited to the race, race organisers announced their inclusion to the race, bringing the total number of teams competing to twenty-one.
In the 2013 Tour de Romandie, four different jerseys were awarded. For the general classification, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage, and allowing time bonuses in mass-start stages, the leader received a yellow jersey. This classification was considered the most important of the 2013 Tour de Romandie, and the winner of the classification was considered the winner of the race.
Additionally, there was a young rider classification, which awarded a white jersey. This was decided the same way as the general classification, but only riders born after 1 January 1988 were eligible to be ranked in the classification. There was also a mountains classification, the leadership of which was marked by a pink jersey. In the mountains classification, points were won by reaching the top of a climb before other cyclists, with more points available for the higher-categorised climbs; there were fourteen categorised climbs in the race, split into three distinctive categories.
The fourth jersey represented the sprints classification, marked by a green jersey. In the sprints classification, cyclists received points for finishing in the top 3 at intermediate sprint points during each stage, with the exception of the individual time trial stages. There was also a classification for teams, in which the times of the best three cyclists per team on each stage were added together; the leading team at the end of the race was the team with the lowest total time.
