Movistar's Rui Costa finished third at this year's Tour de Romandie. With this good form he can perhaps defend his title in next month's Tour de Suisse.

On the uphill finish on stage 4 of Tour de Romandie, Costa was third behind Simon Spilak (Katusha), who won, and Chris Froome (Sky). And then at the final time trial, he continued to show that he is in good form and finished 12th.

"We knew it was certainly hard to be on top of the overall, with [Chris] Froome the strongest in the mountains and more than a decent time triallist, but there were two podium places up for grabs," Costa said.

"It was sad to lose the chance to be second yesterday with [Simon] Spilak at the front, but it was a really hard stage and there wasn't any cooperation at all into the pursuit group. Alejandro [Valverde] and I always spoke a lot within ourselves and we were feeling not so well, so we couldn't really get any further yesterday."

Before the final stage, Rui Costa was leading RadioShack's Robert Kiserlovski by just one second in the general classificaion. But as he finished 12th in the time trial, Costa secured third overall by five seconds over Garmin's Tom Danielson.

"I don't know if it's due to the big Portuguese community living here and cheering for me on these roads - the really important thing is that I'm achieving good results in many races. I wasn't really expecting to make it into the best three here, though I gained confidence after doing a good race in Liège."

"This podium was possible thanks to all team members - they committed to us all week and their work was really important. Switzerland keeps bringing me good results. Now I'll be taking a week's rest before starting my build-up to the Tour, with my mind on defending the Tour de Suisse title. That will be probably the only race I'll take part in before the Tour."