The final stage, the deciding stage, and by elevation likely the toughest stage of the race. Starting and ending in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, the riders will take a detour to Italy to climb the iconic Passo del Stelvio. However, with much of the final 50-odd kilometers relatively flat or even downhill, it’s dubious if we will see big gaps between the top GC contenders.
But many spots in the Top 15 are so close that minor gaps or even bonus seconds could change things, most importantly of course in the fight for the overall win, where Haig leads by just 4 seconds over Bernal. And on top, with an HC climb – the famed Passo del Stelvio –, a 1st category climb and 3 2nd category climbs, even a rider without any prior mountain points could topple KoM leader Dunne.
Some very strong riders try to get away after just a few meters. 16th overall Darbellay is followed by 12th overall Foss and … 81st overall Main. Surprising that Glanbia send him and not Dunne.
But there he is: The third Glanbia rider on the road following an attack by Healy, Dunne is on his way. A whole bunch of riders try their best to get into the breakaway here, including 10th overall Powless.
18 riders are at the front as the riders hit the first slopes of the Pass Dal Fuorn. Another 9 now go after them including strong climbers like Smith and Conci. What will the top teams in the peloton be willing to accept?
The 27 riders come together and lead the peloton by 2’20 at the foot of the second part of the Pass Dal Fuorn. But Amaysim Australia.com has 4 riders working at the head of the pack trying to bring them back, including strong climbers like Schultz, Power and Evans.
But the breakaway is working well together, too, and remain in the lead by about 2 minutes as Conci wins the first mountain sprint ahead of Smith, so perhaps it’s time to give you the full list of names in there. In rough order of climbing ability, they are:
Smith
Powless
Foss
Williams
Conci
Brozyna
Darbellay
Borisavljevic
Zimmermann
Salinas
Arifin
Quintana
Hoehn
Schmid
Schinnagel
Main
Seibeb
Dunne
Fraile
Brandt
Craddock
Battistella
Romo
Stroll
Van den Berg
Magnusson
Healy
Was it a wasted effort to compile that list? Maybe. Near the first intermediate sprint, Amaysim with the help of Genii Hyundai, who had missed the breakaway, among others, reel in the breakaway. Of course, the next wave of attacks immediately begins.
At said intermediate sprint, we have a total of 16 riders ahead of the peloton, which seems to be more feasible. Those include exclusively riders from the previous group. Quintana, Brandt and Seibeb still have some ways to go, Conci is about to catch up to the leading 12, which are:
Smith
Powless
Foss
Williams
Zimmermann
Darbellay
Brozyna
Salinas
Hoehn
Main
Van den Berg
Magnusson
While Conci was able to catch up, the other three chasers couldn’t make it. They would remain ahead of the peloton for a while before being caught some kilometers later. About halfway up the Passo dello Stelvio, the breakaway has a lead of 4 minutes, which puts Powless in the provisional GC lead.
Unsurprisingly, Magnusson is the first escapee to crack. Assa Abloy had few options for today, Chaves perhaps the only viable one, but he was never in a position to attack. A decent effort from the team nonetheless.
With still 8 kilometers to go to the summit, Van den Berg can no longer keep up either.
And a quick look at the climb makes it clear why. 21 kilometers at almost 9%, only getting steeper as it progresses, is brutal and the breakaway is setting a decent pace. They have to, though, because the peloton is doing their best to keep them on a short-ish leash. The gap remains around 4 minutes and the peloton is already down to just over 100 riders.
Conci did well in yesterday's time trial, but in the mountains, this really isn’t his race. He’s dropped alongside Salinas. Hoehn can’t keep up anymore either and Main follows not longer after. Williams and Foss do most of the work and set a high pace. Still over 6km to the top.
The top favorites are well aware of the danger that Powless and Foss pose. We already see Shikai working, with Bernal and Haig in the wind, too.
5 kilometers to the summit and Darbellay is gone. It has started to snow, which won’t make this any easier for anyone.
Foss is relentless and with 3 kilometers to the summit, only Williams is able to stay with him. Despite all of this, the peloton has decreased the gap to just under three and a half minutes.
As a result, the peloton is down to just 35 riders and Kennaugh (21st) is the best-placed GC rider distanced, falling behind next to KoM leader Dunne. 22nd Warbasse, 24th Fraile and 25th Brown are dropped as well. They’ll attempt to stay close enough to recover and come back in the descent.
But that won’t be easy. More and more riders are shed from the peloton which is down to 21 with 1.5 kilometers to go to the summit. Girdlestone (14th), Sicard (17th), Borisavljevic (19th) and Rachid (20th) are the next victims.
Foss takes 20 points at the summit ahead of Williams. Smith also has 20 points now. Shikai is back at the head of the peloton, which has reduced the gap to just 2 minutes.
Only 18 riders cross the summit together back there, which include the Top 13 GC riders other than Powless and Foss, as well as Almeida, Guerreiro, Valter, Barta and former breakway riders Darbellay and Main. The group with most of the distanced Top 20 riders is already over 2 minutes behind them, but they might be able to catch up in the descent and following flat stretch.
However, at the foot of the Passo del Foscagno, they still trail them by a minute and a half. Only Johannessen, Madouas, Conci and Hoehn, who had been between the two groups, managed to catch up. At the front of the race, Brozyna, Powless and Zimmermann reunited with the three leaders, now with a gap of 2’10 to the peloton.
It is just unfair to have a rider like Shikai as a domestique. The breakaway is brought back halfway up the climb. Will we see a new attack, or is the pace going to slow down?
First, it’s neither, with Shikai simply setting a high pace, dropping Barta, Hoehn, Madouas and Conci in the process. But then, fireworks begin! With 7 kilometers to climb, and 63 (!!) kilometers to go in the stage, 2nd overall Bernal attacks! Oomen and Haig follow immediately.
The three briefly get a gap but don’t work together and it’s Madrazo who brings them back. This ordeal drops Valter and Powless, who now stands to lose quite a few GC places. Six of the riders remaining ahead of him are among the overall ranks 11 to 20, all of whom are close enough to potentially overtake him.
Shikai then simply continues to lead the way and crosses the summit first. No attacks from Foss or Smith, but Bernal in second place has now 31 mountain points. With 30 left, Dunne (at 51) isn’t quite safe yet.
While the pace at the front doesn’t seem too high at the moment, it’s enough to distance Powless by almost two minutes already. Meanwhile, Girdlestone, Rachid and Borisavljevic have broken away from the Sicard / Kennaugh group in an effort to retain as much of their GC positions as possible. Catching up to Madouas, they’re only 35 seconds behind Powless, Valter and Guerreiro.
Not much to report from the Passo dell’Eira, except for another 3 mountain points for Bernal. He moves up to 4th in the KoM classification.
Shikai takes it easy on the flat stretch before the Forcola di Livigno and the aforementioned seven chasers catch up. The next chasing group including Warbasse and Brown is 1’45 behind, then another 40 seconds to the Sicard group.
But neither of them get any closer, instead Madouas and Rachid are dropped again as soon as the road turns uphill again. Then, sensing the first signs of weakness in Shikai, Geoghegan Hart attacks!
First Kirsch and then Madrazo lead the pursuit, but the Cedevita leader retains a small lead for now. With more than 30 kilometers to go, this is a daring endeavor to undertake, especially going solo. Meanwhile, Shikai is dropping like a stone. 9th in the GC prior to the stage, he stands to lose a lot, but his role was clear and he certainly delivered as the most luxurious of domestiques.
Darbellay takes over but Geoghegan Hart slowly extends his lead. A short descent is followed by another short but steep climb, but afterwards it’s still more than 20 kilometers to the finish – tough to survive all alone. All that means nothing to Dunne, who can celebrate way behind the leaders, because with no points to Bernal, he has secured himself the win of the mountain classification.
Into the Berninapass, Powless, Valter and Conci are dropped once more.
Not much later, so is Darbellay, which means Stüssi himself takes the lead going after Geoghegan Hart, who consistently remains 20 seconds ahead. Next to Darbellay, Main also falls behind, but what an incredible feat for him to hang on all the way until now, outlasting much stronger climbers.
Stüssi is either out of energy or doesn’t want to take sole responsibility, and Geoghegan Hart’s lead jumps to 45 seconds as he nears the summit. That’s too much for Oomen, who’s most immediately threatened by the Brit. He attacks.
Four riders - Stüssi, Cattaneo, Reis and Haig – are very attentive and follow, but Bernal is not one of them! He needs to close this gap now.
On the other end of the group, Johannessen, Zimmermann, Smith, Williams and Brozyna are dropped.
Bernal makes it back to the yellow jersey group, and so do all other top favorites, which immediately prompts the next attack by Oomen. This time, only Haig and Bernal follow, prompting McNulty to accelerate. Through all this, Geoghegan Hart is still 40 seconds ahead!
A massive shift from Haig bridges the trio across to Geoghegan Hart. They will need to work together to keep the chasers, led at the moment by Reis, at bay.
They do – well, three of them, anyway. While the others take their turns, Geoghegan Hart stays in fourth position, though to be fair he has his long solo breakaway attempt to recover from. But it’s enough anyway to even increase their lead over the chasers, where no one else wants to help Reis. The lack of effort by McNulty is particularly surprising, though maybe he simply doesn’t have the energy.
Entering the final short climb with 3.5 kilometers to go, the gap is almost half a minute, which puts Oomen on podium course, and we’ll have a fantastic one v one showdown for the overall victory.
Accelerations by the other three reveal that Geoghegan Hart indeed simply couldn’t contribute any more than he did. He’s distanced, but by now still has 50 seconds on the chasers, which could see him move up to 4th overall. Just over 2 kilometers to go.
Under the red kite, we have a few hundred meters of cobblestones. Among the three leaders, Bernal has the advantage on that terrain and he’s taking it head-on.
But he can’t shake Haig, who draws level into the final bend. 700 meters to decide this race!
Haig pulls ahead, what an effort! Does Bernal have anything left in the tank? He needs the stage win to take yellow.
Oh, he does! With 300 meters to go, Haig looks finished and Bernal takes the lead!
Too exhausted to celebrate, Egan Bernal wins stage 7 and the general classification of the Tour de Suisse! Him and Haig were very clearly the best climbers, and with a stage win each, it ultimately came down to the four seconds from the time trial. What a great battle they gave us.
Just as those two were clearly the strongest, Oomen was clearly the third strongest climber here, and with some aggressive and assertive racing, he takes a very deserved third place overall.
Following the cobbles, we finally have true accelerations in the chasing group. McNulty and Reis stand to benefit the most, they had 34 and 27 seconds over Geoghegan Hart, who currently leads by around 45 but is struggling to keep a decent pace.
He drags himself over the finish line 1’13 behind the stage winner and is now counting the seconds …
… and as Almeida crosses the line, the gap is … exactly 34 seconds! Geoghegan Hart and McNulty end up tied for time, but the American is given 4th place. What a nailbiter! Reis loses one place and ends up 6th, Cattaneo and Stüssi remain in 7th and 8th place.
Due to Powless and Shikai overextending themselves, Madrazo and Foss move up two places to complete the Top 10. Almeida, Kirsch and Guerreiro, as well as Habtemichael, who finishes some 30 seconds behind this group, now have to wait for the others riders to see how far this takes them in the GC.
Brozyna, Williams and Zimmermann come in another 40 seconds later at + 2’54. While Williams had no GC ambitions today after losing too much time prior, the other two enter the Top 20 with Zimmermann making a massive jump from 46th to 19th.
Powless finishes next alongside Valter, Smith and Darbellay. The American pushed all his chips in the middle with that early attack and it didn’t pay off. He falls from 10th to 14th behind Almeida in 11th, Habtemichael in 12th and Kirsch in 14th. Darbellay remains in 16th overall, now behind Brozyna.
If you’ve counted along here, you’ll notice there’s not spot left for Shikai. He imploded after all his work at the front of the peloton, losing over 6 minutes today and dropping from 9th to 17th. Bernal’s win will ease those pains, though, as his work paid off in the end.
Girdlestone, Borisavljevic and Rachid lose their Top 20 places, they finish 21st through 23rd behind Guerreiro, who ends up 18th (from 45th before the stage) and ties Zimmermann for the biggest jump of the day, as well as Johannessen, who finishes 20th.
While those are some pretty solid GC results for Puma, Kanter has to relinquish the points jersey, which goes to Bernal. Haig even relegates the German sprinter to third place, which he now has tied with Oomen. Bernal also finished third in the KoM classification behind Salazar and of course the winner, Dunne.
McNulty easily wins the young riders classification as expected, ahead of Almeida and Johannessen, also as expected. Lastly, with three riders in the Top 22, Cedevita wins the team classification. And that wraps up the 2024 Tour de Suisse. Hope you enjoyed!
Tour de Suisse 
