Elise Chabbey is the first Swiss woman to win the Tour de Romandie

(sda) Elise Chabbey began the final stage, starting and finishing in Aigle, eight seconds behind Urska Zigart. The route profile included five short climbs. Nevertheless, the overall challenge seemed too challenging for the French-speaking rider to turn things around. This assumption seemed to hold true until the final obstacle.

But then Elise Chabbey increased the pace again in the final meters of the final, 1.2-kilometer climb. Initially, only Spaniard Paula Blasi, winner of Friday's individual time trial, was able to follow the Genevan. Above all, Elise Chabbey was able to distance herself from Urska Zigart; at one point, the time difference between the two was almost half a minute – partly because the Slovenian had briefly gone off the course after a riding error on the descent.

In the end, however, it was a close call, creating a thrilling finale. In the end, seven seconds decided the difference in favor of Elise Chabbey, who secured third place on Sunday behind Hungarian Blanka Vas and Paula Blasi. Urska Zigart followed the leading trio eleven seconds behind, which, combined with the four-second bonus for Elise Chabbey, resulted in a seven-second lead in the final standings.

With the overall victory, Elise Chabbey wonderfully capped off the most successful phase of her career so far. Two weeks ago, she won the mountains classification at the Tour de France, and on Saturday she won the second stage of the Tour of Western Switzerland, with the tough final climb to La Tzoumaz, thus triumphing for the first time at the World Tour level.