Chris Froome wins Tour de Romandie prologue

Great Britain's Chris Froome won the prologue of the Tour de Romandie by six seconds on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old, who will be Team Sky's lead cyclist at the Tour de France this summer, beat Andrew Talansky into second with Robert Kiserlovski third.

Froome, who finished the 7.45km (4.63-mile) test of climbing ability in 13 minutes and 15 seconds, said: "We're going to try and keep the jersey."

The 109.6-mile first stage proper, from St-Maurice to Renens, is on Wednesday.

Froome added: "I haven't raced now in a stage race for a month since the Criterium International. I wasn't sure how my condition would be coming into this race.

"Winning the prologue today is definitely a good sign and I'd like to try and defend the jersey this week the best I can. I know it's going to be a very hard week of racing.

"I don't have a really big advantage on the other general classification contenders here.

"I think the big stages will be this coming weekend. On Saturday we have a really hard mountain stage followed by a time trial on Sunday. So we have to do as much as we can there and hope that nothing bad turns against us in the race."

It is the sixth victory of the season for Froome, with the overall title in the Tour of Oman and the Criterium International also among his haul this campaign.

Fellow Britons Pete Kennaugh and Josh Edmondson finished 35th and 42nd respectively.

Froome's team-mate Sir Bradley Wiggins won the event last year as part of the build-up to his Tour de France victory, although he is not competing in Switzerland this year.

The six-day race finishes on Sunday.