LA CHAUX-DE-FONDS, Switzerland: Spaniard Ion Izaguirre was a surprise winner of the opening prologue at the Tour de Romandie on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old Movistar rider covered the technical 3.95km course in 5min 33sec to beat Dutch time-trial specialist Tom Dumoulin by six seconds.

Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski was third at 7sec in the same time as his Welsh Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas, but their team leader Chris Froome struggled.

The Tour de France champion finished 26sec down in 62nd after his run was hampered by snowfall at La Chaux-de-Fonds.

He lost time on other overall favorites including Nairo Quintana (18th at 16sec), Thibaut Pinot (11th at 12sec), Romain Barrdet (27th at 18sec) and 2011 winner Simon Spilak (36th at 22sec).

But reigning champion Ilnur Zakarin of Russia struggled even more than Briton Froome and finished 75th at 30sec while Australian Richie Porte was 101st at 37sec, although his BMC team-mate Tejay Van Garderen managed a strong run to come ninth at just 11sec.

Wednesday’s opening stage proper is 167km from Chaux-de-Fonds to Moudon.

Belgian banned for 6 years for motorized doping

The Belgian cyclist caught during competition in January with an electric motor hidden in one of her bikes has been banned for six years and fined 20,000 Swiss francs ($20,603.69), the sport’s governing body said on Tuesday.

Femke Van den Driessche, 19, was found guilty of violating competition rules through “technological fraud” during the 2016 Cyclo-cross world championships, the International Cycling Union (UCI) said earlier.

It is the first time an elite rider has been punished for so-called “mechanical doping.” A UCI statement on Tuesday described the ban as “a major victory” in the fight against a form of cheating seen as a growing problem in the sport.

“The bike concerned was scanned using the new magnetic resonance testing deployed this year by the UCI. This detected the motor whilst the bike was in the rider’s pit area,” the statement said.

It said the Vivax motor was concealed along with a battery in the seat-tube, and was controlled by a Bluetooth switch installed underneath the handlebar tape.

Van den Driessche denied knowing that the bike broke the rules, and said it belonged to her friend. But she later decided not to contest the finding and quit the sport.

In a sign of a get-tough policy by the UCI, Van den Driessche has seen all her competitive results nullified since October 2015 and been stripped of her ranking.

She has also been ordered to return medals and prize monies from events in which she competed over that period, and to pay costs of the proceedings.

“We have invested considerable resources in developing this new and highly effective scanning technology and also in strengthening the sanctions applicable to anyone found cheating in this way,” UCI President Brian Cookson said.