After a mostly flat opening day, the peloton is entering the Swiss Plateau on their way to Luzern, the country’s seventh biggest city. Seven categorized climbs await the riders, so Boros will have to work very hard to defend his King of the Mountain jersey, and so does any sprinter who wants to have a chance to reach the finish at the front of the race. More likely, the stage will be contested by the faster riders among the puncheurs and climbers.
It’s another day of pretty terrible weather and again it takes a bit for the riders to get going, but then Moser opens up the attacks. Surprisingly, they go with Turek, who’s not only a worse puncheur than Boros, but also obviously doesn’t have any mountain points yet. He’s followed initially by Gilmore, Scotson and Plowright – all pretty poor uphill riders, too.
Turek retains a gap for now. Behind him, Jarc, Cheyne, Biermans and Neilands join the other three riders to form a chasing group of seven.
That is apparently too many riders for the peloton to be comfortable with and that group is brough back. Plowright and Neilands go for a second attempt.
The race can’t seem to calm down. Attacks keep coming and coming, and over and over again, it’s mostly EA Vesuvio and, somewhat unexpectedly, Zwift shutting them down. Among the riders trying to get away are Jarc, Frison, Curley, Verwilst, Stocek and Louvel.
25 kilometers into the race, we currently have two riders in the lead by almost one and a half minutes, namely Neilands and Hansen. Poor Turek, who was alone at the front for all this time, wasn’t able to keept up with those two and is also overtaken by Scotson, Cosnefroy and Currie, who launch another attack.
The peloton finally relents and the five attackers come together to form our group of the day. Primarily a time trialist, Cosnefroy is also the best puncheur in this group, but cobblestone specialist Neilands could give him a run for his money. They’re both clearly a cut above the other three, but Hansen is the quickest of them all.
And he proves that at the intermediate sprint, winning it comfortably ahead of Scotson and Neilands.
The Côte de Triabuhlweg is barely a small hill, so again it’s more about speed than puncheur skills. Yet thanks to better positioning and timing, it’s Scotson who takes five points.
The Côte de Gauchen is an entirely different thing, though, with an average gradient of 8.5% for 5 kilometers. Scotson and Currie expectedly fall behind near the summit and Cosnefroy easily comes away with 10 points to move into shared second place of the climbers classification. Hansen beats Neilands to take 8 points, but overall the group has been rather slow up the climb and Cosnefroy’s gap to the peloton drops under 2 minutes. EA Vesuvio is still leading the chase.
There’s also a first split in the peloton and among the riders in the second group are the likes of Gebrezgabihier, Romo, Schmid and Burke, who are some of the riders that were expected to do well today. We’ll monitor the situation but it’s not a promising start for these guys.
Hansen and Neilands had briefly caught up with Cosnefroy, but when the French attacks on the Côte du Junken, they’re quickly out of their depth again. Cosnefroy takes the lead in the climbers classification, Hansen moves into second place, they have 17 and 15 points, respectively. The peloton, meanwhile, has reunited.
With still over 50 kilometers to go, this is now a solo adventure for Cosnefroy. Scotson and Currie are already caught by the peloton, Hansen and Neilands are about to be, but the ZARA – Irizar rider has rebuilt his lead to almost 3 minutes. He increases his points total in the mountain classification to 22 on the Côte de Schangau, but there are still 25 points on offer in the final 25 kilometers, so he’ll attempt to make it at least to the first of the three final mountain sprints to secure the jersey. His time trialing skills should help.
Behind him, we have a suprising move from Broxham, who uses the mountain sprint as a spring board and attempts to close the gap to Cosnefroy. Not sure how likely that is, but he adds some screentime for his sponsor Glanbia, at the very least. Assa Abloy for Chaves, Colombini for Gebrezgabihier (despite his earlier struggles), Puma for Madouas and DK Zalgiris for Moscon have started to work at the front of the peloton now.
Broxham remained ahead of the peloton for a while, but never got a gap of more than 20 seconds. The move certainly didn’t help Cosnefroy, who’s caught right at the second intermediate sprint. Kennaugh and Nur Hasan pick up 4 and 2 points, respectively, which might secure the points jersey for the Brit for at least another day.
EA Vesuvio is back in control of the peloton and Hepburn more or less accidentally picks up 10 points at the top of the Rengg climb. Valter has moved into second position already, with Bernal crossing the line 4th behind Lane.
On the steepest slopes of the Schwarzenberg, Laas and Lasinis take over and set a high pace. Valter, Chaves and Moscon follow in the next positions, Burke, Kirsch, Madouas and Bernal are close to the front, too. Some of the sprinters, including Afewerki, Kanter and Kennaugh, are trying their best to stay close, too, but are showing signs of struggling.
Laas’ pace is so intense that a group of 14 briefly get a gap near the summit. In addition to the climbers/puncheurs mentioned above, it includes Schultz, Raileanu (who appears to be Colombini’s leader today rather than Gebrezgabihier), Smith, Rohendi and Haig. Borges is working hard to catch up, though.
It’s Barta who closes the gap, but right at the line for the mountain sprint, Valter launches a strong attack! He also has 18 mountain points now, meaning he could overtake Cosnefroy if he also wins the final mountain sprint.
Kirsch also attacks to join Valter, the two EA Vesuvio riders have a 12 second lead on a group of 24 led by Madouas. Geoghegan Hart, Madrazo, Stüssi and Powless are the biggest names among the GC contenders not in this second group, they’re in the peloton trailing by 30 seconds.
Madouas brings the two leaders back and Cosnefroy can thank Haig for overtaking Valter, thus giving ZARA - Irizar the KoM jersey by a single point. 7.6 kilometers remain, all going downhill. If this group remains at the front, Kulikovskiy is the top favorite for the sprint.
Haig continues to lead the first group and despite his mediocre-at-best downhill skills, the gap to the second group remains at roughly half a minute. Kalaba is in second position here, and Hayakawa, Nur Hasan and Thijssen are very close to the front, too. If they somehow make it to the front, they’d certainly fight for the stage win, but they may run out of time. Kennaugh, meanwhile, is in the next group another 30 seconds behind, which opens the door for today’s stage winner to take yellow, too.
Nearing the final kilometer, Kulikovskiy, Guerreiro and Madouas, the three fastest riders of the group, position themselves nicely close to the front. Bagioli and Borges, who otherwise also shouldn’t be discounted, are at the very back of the group, seemingly just trying to hang on.
Kulikovskiy takes the lead with 900 meters to go. Madouas and Laas, despite all his hard work, are the fastest behind him.
It’s those three and Valter who will fight for the stage win. It’s all a matter of endurance now for Kulikovskiy.
Laas is up to second place, only 300 meters to go!
And he brings it home! Massive win for Zwift and Alexandr Kulikovskiy! Laas finishes second, a very impressive stage by him. Valter denies Madouas a podium place by a few centimeters, then Guerreiro, Smith and Oomen finish 5th through 7th.
Kalaba and Darbellay are so fast that they get a gap to the chasing group. This could be absolutely crucial to potentially erase what would otherwise be a costly time gap for some of the prominent riders in this group. We’ll have to wait for the jury’s decision.
Similarly, the yellow jersey group isn’t far behind. If this also isn’t judged as a time gap, Kennaugh would hang on to yellow thanks to the bonus seconds from the intermediate sprint …
… and that is exactly what happens. The first 136 riders are given the same time, meaning the Top 3 in the GC are Kennaugh, Kulikovskiy only in second place, and then Kanter still ahead of Laas, while Thijssen remains in white, though tied on time with Valter. Certainly a controversial decision, but consistent with what we’ve often seen on these types of finishes.
With most of the really tough difficulties in the first half of the stage tomorrow, Kennaugh could conceivably hold on to yellow for another day, but it’s also not tough to imagine the puncheurs taking full control of the race in the finale. We’ll find out together, see you then!
Tour de Suisse 
