The Suisse National Championships feature a mountain road race and a flat timetrial.
The local teams Swisscom (15 riders/2 teams) and Vontobel (11/2) make for 26 of 33 riders here!
The biggest pressure is on Swisscom though: Frank (Swiss #1) and Tschopp (Swiss #2) are amongst the top-favorites.
Saggiorato (Sauber) and Morabito (Red Bull) heavily rely on Swisscom and Vontobel to control the race.
Vontobel leaves the pressure to Swisscom by sending two riders into the first escaping group:
Schurter (Sauber)
Schuler (Vontobel)
Aregger (Venchi)
Lang (Vontobel)
The first two as by far the best climbers in this group and already dropping the latter two on the first climb!
The peloton is indeed led by Swisscom, which kept the gap on the leading duo at 1'45" with now 30km remaining and still two climbs to come.
Schelling (Swisscom) now trying to bridge across Schuler/Schurter!
Good news for the neutral spectators, since he's on Swisscom "B"-roster, so not in Frank's team..
Good news, because Swisscom's "A"-team kept pacing to narrow the gap to a minute with now 15km to go.
The favorites launch their moves now:
Morabito (Red Bull)
Tschopp (Swiss #2)
Frank (Swiss #1)
attack, while Schelling already caught up to Schuler/Schurter!
Just a few moments later and Frank accelerates again to easily drop Tschopp/Morabito and bridging across the leading trio quickly!
What a move! The top-favorite also drops this trio without any problems and opened up a minutes-gap on new solo-chaser Schurter on the final downhill sector!
Just 4km to go now, facing the summit finish, Frank looks like the winner..
..1.7km to go and he's already 2 minutes in the lead!
Morabito and Schurter attack Tschopp now, but this is the fight for second place only..
Frank takes the road title in style: 1'50" advantage on runner-up Morabito in the end, the top-favorite and his team(s) went for the perfect tactic today. Well done.
Tschopp completes the podium ahead of Schurter and Schuler. Quite an interesting race with a dominating winner though.
Anything but a dominating TT-win by Cancellara would be a huuuge surprise.. will the veteran bounce back from a kinda disastrous World Championships ITT, where he finished as 10th?
Spartacus hits the road with riders like Schär (Vonto) or Dilier (Swisscom) as his most dangerous opponents today..
Dilier would go to beat Schär by half a minute eventually.. but look at this picture, where it's still 13km to go for him..
Cancellara overtakes his biggest opponent already prior to the final split! Going past the runner-up that early means one thing:
Domination! Cancellara easily grabs the TT-title and beats Dilier by 2'36".. Schär completes the podium with already 3'04" lost on Spartacus.
Suisse National Championships feature a mountain road race and a flat timetrial.
