While many races wind down with a flat stage after a hard week’s racing, the Tour de Suisse saved the most brutal until last. Stage 9 – the Queen Stage – had been shortened due to snowfall, but even at its revised 101.5km distance, it was still by far the hardest parcours riders were going to encounter in a long time. Three Hors Catégorie climbs dominated the profile, and today was going to be a day where there was nowhere to hide – if a rider was having a bad day, it would show straight away.
Rolling out of Ulrichen – where the stage and the race would also end – a break was slow to form, with the peloton climbing Switzerland’s highest pass, the Nufenenpass, almost from the start line making this difficult. There were several groups on the road, but a cohesive escape group hadn’t yet come together, while the peloton itself was small owing to the sheer number of riders dropping off on this first climb alone.
For much of the day, there was one rider out in front, and with several smaller groups forming and splintering further back on the road, the solo rider’s advantage exceeded five minutes at times. While exhausted after more than a week of hard racing, the BORA-hansgrohe riders worked hard to stop any riders that could threaten the outcome of the overall race from going off up the road. On such a hard day, there was no strong team presence in the peloton to push the pace and it came down to the individual riders to decide if they were going to try their luck and see if they could take some extra time from their rivals.
Flying the flag for BORA-hansgrohe here were Lukas Pöstlberger and Patrick Konrad, who was also riding for his place in the GC. It was here that the attacks came from the GC riders and Lukas played a pivotal role in responding to these and reducing their threat to Patrick’s podium spot. With Lukas having kept Patrick safe over the second climb, it was all up to Patrick to push on over the 7.7% slopes of the 11.7km long Furkapass, with several riders aiming to take some time from him any way they could. Cresting the final climb of the race and the finish line looming large on the horizon, with the solo rider already across the line, the Austrian rider knew there were some valuable bonus seconds still available at the finish, but in the final sprint to the line, he confirmed his podium position, taking ninth on the stage and third in the GC – the first time had climbed the podium of a WorldTour race. The Slovak National Champion, Peter Sagan, finished the day to confirm his win in the points contest and extend his Tour de Suisse record, having won the prize in eight of the past nine years.
Results
01 H. Carthy 3:01:49
02 R. Dennis +1:02
03 E. Bernal +1:02
09 P. Konrad +2:15
General Classification
01 E. Bernal 27:43:10
02 R. Dennis +0:19
03 P. Konrad +3:04
From the Finish Line
“I’m really happy to be on the podium of the Tour de Suisse, it’s the result of a solid effort by everybody during these nine stages. The team did an excellent job today, especially by controlling the attacks in the first part of the stage as well as the breakaway that could have put my GC placement in danger. This allowed me to be in a good position in the final climb, together with the main contenders, and secure my spot. Thanks, everybody, it is a good feeling being on the podium and I now look forward to the Tour de France.” – Patrick Konrad
“I’m happy with my performance in this year’s Tour de Suisse. I extended my stage win record in this race to 17, I got my eighth points classification jersey and I felt that my form has been where it should have at this time of the year. On top of that, Patrick is third overall, so congratulations to him and the whole team for this result. My focus will now turn to the Slovak National Championship next weekend and then, of course, one of the main goals of the season, the Tour de France.” – Peter Sagan
“Today we had a very hard stage, with three HC climbs and more than 3,000 of altitude gain, and, of course, our primary objective was to secure Patrick Konrad’s position on the final podium. The whole team did a beautiful job from the start and the first climb. We tried to minimize as much as we could the dangerous attacks and cover them when they happened. Everybody worked towards that, with Lukas Pöstlberger, in particular, staying close to Patrick until the final climb. Patrick had the legs, raced smartly to fend off the attacks and finish on the podium. In addition to Patrick’s GC goal, Peter Sagan had to retain his points jersey by finishing within the time limits. He rode with the main group in the two first climbs, then dropped back to continue on his own pace and keep the black jersey. I think that overall it was a good race for BORA-hansgrohe, we were third in the GC, leaders in the points classification and got a stage win.” – Jan Valach, Sports Director
