Tour de Suisse #8: Day of Truth in the Alps

Cycling: The distance that the field had to cover today in the Tour de Suisse between Delémont and Verbier measured almost 220 kilometers. The drivers faced two graded climbs, both of which only waited for the last twenty kilometers.

After just a few kilometers, a leading group of eight broke away from the field, in which Christian Knees (Sky) was also a German. Alongside him, José Rojas (Movistar), Sebastian Minard (Ag2R La Mondiale), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Gregory Rast (Trek), Nathan Brown (Garmin-Sharp) Mateusz Taciak (CCC) and Laurens de Vreese (Wanty-Groupe) also succeeded Goubert) the jump into the group. They worked well together and continuously increased their lead to over seven minutes.

However, on the final two climbs of the day, the lead gradually began to disappear. Twenty kilometers from the finish, the field had already more than halved the gap. After the mountain classification in the third category, the last climb of the day began ten kilometers before the finish, with over 650 meters of altitude difference to overcome.

The leading group had now shrunk to three riders, with Wyss proving to be the strongest. However, he was not granted the privilege of clinching the first Swiss day's victory in this tour. The pace that IAM set for its captain Mathias Frank was too high for that. The Swiss finally took flight a few hundred meters after Wyss was caught. However, he did not manage to shake off the other favorites. Among these, overall leader Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) presented himself very strongly, finishing seventh at the end of the day. The leader of the mountains classification, Björn Thurau (Europcar), also had a strong race. But even he was not allowed to break away from the field decisively.

On the other hand, the Colombian Johan Chavez (Orica-GreenEdge) succeeded in doing this, breaking away from his flight companion Davide Formolo (Cannondale) one kilometer before the finish line and finally clinching a sovereign solo victory. A few seconds behind him, Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) crossed the finish line in second ahead of Bauke Mollema (Belkin). Tony Martin followed in a small group, 17 seconds back.

Should Martin present himself similarly well tomorrow, he is capable of overall victory at this year's Tour de Suisse.