The Tour de Suisse arrived in Swiss territory this Monday, during a second stage towards the Canton of Zurich. In the final, a short three-kilometer bump sorted the peloton, but the sprinters still had the last word and Bryan Coquard won. Present within the peloton, Sam Watson and Stefan Küng retained their sixth and eighth places overall, while Lenny Martinez and Rudy Molard also grabbed the first place in the race. Another punchy finale in perspective tomorrow in Rüschlikon.
The day after an opening time trial dominated by Yves Lampaert, the sprinters perhaps had their only opportunity of the week this Monday, during the second stage. However, there were a few bumps to overcome over the 177 kilometers of the course, including in the finale. “It was supposed to be a day without real danger, and we expected a somewhat punchy finish because the last difficulty, located ten kilometers from the finish, could make it possible to eliminate a few sprinters,” noted Thierry Bricaud. The expected group finish nevertheless did not prevent five men from pushing themselves to the front from the start, and the peloton from giving them almost five minutes of lead. A gap naturally revised downwards as the finale got closer. “The last hour of the race was quite fast and intense, with a few crashes, and we got throughexplained Thierry. It’s a bit like the scenario we expected.”
“There were no big movements,” Thierry Bricaud
The survivors of the breakaway started the last climb with less than a minute on the peloton, who were very nervous at the time. As the difficulty approached, Groupama-FDJ got back in the wake of Sven-Erik Bystrom. “It was important to position yourself before the foot, then Sam had to follow if it moved, just like Rudyadded Thierry. It went up quickly but it settled down a bit afterwards, so there were no big movements.” Approaching the summit, a split was created in the peloton, but everything returned to normal after a descent carried out at high speed. At the head of the pack, Stefan Küng followed a few accelerations, but not that of Alberto Bettiol, caught before the red flame. “Stefan accompanied but there were still a lot of people leftsaid Thierry. The initial objective was to do the sprint with Sam, but we thought we would have arrived in a slightly smaller group. There were still 80 runners left, including quite a few real sprinters, so it was becoming a little more complicated.”
The Briton was also unable to reposition himself for the race and therefore finished beyond the top 20 alongside his Swiss friend. Lenny Martinez and Rudy Molard also finished in the same time. “Tomorrow, the finale is a little more difficult but we should have a scenario roughly similar to today”punctuated Thierry.
