Today’s second stage of the Tour de Suisse had a lot of climbing but as expected it came way too early for the GC riders to make a difference. Tomorrow they will have to be on their toes as a small climb to the finish will test their legs and while the puncheurs are likely to battle it out for the stage wins, one or two overall contenders could easily lose a bit of time in a tricky finale.

 

The course

After the opening time trial, the GC battle will be put on hold until the stage 7 time trial and they will take a back seat in the middle part of the race which is loaded with opportunities for the sprinters and classics riders. The third stage is definitely the hardest of those stages as it contains an uphill finish but the uncategorized final ascent is more one for the puncheurs than for the climbers.

 

The stage brings the riders over 202.9km from today's finish in Sarnen to Heiden and takes in some very undulating terrain. The first 70km are mostly flat but from there, the riders will have very little room for recovery. First they go up the category 2 climb Sattel (11.5km, 3.7%) which is long and gradual but not very steep. A descent leads to the final section of flat roads and then it's up or down all the way to the finish. Two of the many climbs are categorized and both of the second category: Wasserfluh (2.7km, 7.3%) and Wald (4.6km, 1.3%) which come with 65.7km and 22.6km to go respectively.

 

After the top of the latter, a descent and a flat stretch lead to the bottom of the final climb which is 3.1km long and has an average gradient of 5.6%. The first 800m are a bit steeper with a gradient of 7.3% while the final part is slightly easier at 4-5%.

 

The finale is very technical. After a series of turns just before the 2km to go banner, the riders hit a king straight road that brings them to the final 300m. Here they do a sharp right-hand turn before doing a 160-degree left-hand turn. Finally, a sharp right-hand turn leads onto the very short finishing straight.

 

 

 

The weather

Today was a very unpleasant affair for the riders as it offered both rain and fog that made the descents very dangerous and caused a few crashes. Luckily summer will return for tomorrow’s stage as it will be a day with beautiful sunshine and a maximum temperature at the finish of 20 degrees.

 

It will be pretty windy as there will be a moderate wind from a northerly direction. This means that the riders will have a headwind in the first short section before turning into a cross-headwind for most of the remaining part of the stage. As they do a small loop around Heiden in the end, the riders will turns into a cross-tailwind for the final 3km climb.

 

The favourites

As expected today’s stage ended up as a very close battle between the peloton and the escapees and in the end, the latter emerged as the strongest. As we had predicted in yesterday’s preview, the Cannondale team wasn’t strong enough to keep things together and as expected, Tony Martin was isolated in the finale. The race leader even had to do some work himself to make sure that he kept his jersey.

 

Tomorrow’s stage is a very tricky affair and again it could come down to a very hard battle between attackers and the peloton. The second half of the stage is very hilly and it takes a pretty strong team to keep things under control. Hence, there is a chance that a break can make it.

 

The final climb is not very tough. Climbs with a gradient of 4-5% are more for the puncheurs than for GC riders and it is unlikely to produce any difference between the overall contenders. Nonetheless, the riders with overall ambitions will need to stay aware as gaps could open up in the finale.

 

This also means that the GC teams are unlikely to do an awful lot of work to keep things under control and it will be up to the stage hunters to bring things together. If the peloton hits the final climb intact, it will probably come down to a sprint finish between the strongest puncheurs and their teams need to do the majority of the work in this difficult terrain.

 

This is the kind of uphill sprints in which Peter Sagan is very hard to beat and so the Slovakian again goes into the stage as the favourite. Again this puts his Cannondale team under pressure and today they proved that they were not strong enough to keep things under control. Only Christiano Salerno and Davide Formolo were there in the finale while Moreno Moser finished in the gruppetto.

 

The first part of the stage is pretty easy and we can expect a hard battle to get involved in the action as a breakaway stands a good chance. Due to the flat terrain, however, Cannondale should be able to  makesure that the early break is not too strong.

 

The real danger comes in the finale. The many climbs are perfect launch pads for attacks and the peloton is loaded with riders that excel in this kind of terrain. If it is left to Cannondale to neutralize the attacks in the finale, we doubt that they will be able to do so. Like today they can’t expect any help from Omega Pharma-Quick Step when the going gets tough as Tony Martin is surrounded by a team of sprinters.

 

Nonetheless, we will put our money on a sprint finish. First of all, the GC is still pretty close and the GC teams may lend a hand if a dangerous group escapes in the finale. Secondly, a couple of teams may have a realistic hope of beating Sagan in this kind of finish. While they always knew that Sagan would be the fastest in the peloton at the end of today’s stage, they know that they have a better chance in this kind of uphill sprint.

 

Today Garmin-Sharp did a lot of work and tomorrow’s stage is perfectly suited to Tom-Jelte Slagter. They have proved that they are not afraid of doing the hard work and we would expect them to lend a hand to the chase, also to make things hard for Sagan. Astana are here to chase stage wins and have both Francesco Gavazzi and Enrico Gasparotto for this kind of finale, Belkin have Bauke Mollema who could use the bonus seconds, and Orica-GreenEDGE have Michael Albasini. A lot of teams fancy their chances in this stage and this should be enough to ensure a sprint finish.

 

This means that Sagan is again the favourite to win the stage. The final climb may be a bit long to suit him perfectly but due to the mellow gradients, he should not get into trouble. He has won lots of this kind of uphill sprints in the past – even on climbs that were a lot steeper – and he is probably the best rider in the world in these finales. Most recently, he won an uphill sprint in the Tirreno-Adriatico and he has done so in the Tour de France and the Tour of Oman earlier in his career.

 

The technical finale suits him perfectly. His bike-handling skills are extraordinary and he is very explosive which makes it possible for him to get back up to speed after the corners. By finishing 6th in the prologue, he showed great condition and he usually comes into the Tour de Suisse with great climbing legs. If it comes down to a sprint finish, we expect Sagan to go into the final turn in first position and then no one will be able to pass him before the line.

 

His biggest rival could be Tom-Jelte Slagter. The young Dutchman showed glimpses of his potential in last year’s Tour Down under but this year he has reached a whole new level. He won two stages of Paris-Nice and would probably have won the race overall if it hadn’t been for a mechanical. One of those wins was taken in an uphill sprint and later he finished 6th in the uphill sprint in Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

 

He finished 8th in the prologue which indicates that he is back in good condition after his post-classics break and he has made it clear that he is going for stage wins in this race. He has also set his sights on the GC and would love to take a few bonus seconds. If Garmin-Sharp can make the race really hard he definitely has a good shot at the win.

 

The same can be said for Bauke Mollema. The Belkin leader seems to be in outstanding condition at the moment. In the prologue, no one went faster up the climb than Mollema and today he animated the racing on the final ascent despite having gone down in a crash just moments earlier. We wouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to be the strongest climber in this race and this should put him in the mix tomorrow.

 

What makes him a real winner candidate is his fast sprint. Mollema is very explosive and excels in this kind of uphill sprints. Of course he would have preferred the final climb to be harder but this one should still be a good one for him. With bonus seconds on the line, he will definitely give it a go.

 

Astana are here to chase stage wins and they have lots of cards to play in this kind of finale. Enrico Gasparotto, Francesco Gavazzi and Maxim Iglinskiy could all have their say but the latter doesn’t seem to be in his best condition. As opposed to this, the Italian duo seem to be riding really well.

 

As both are perfectly suited to this kind of finale, it will be hard to decide which rider to support. As Gavazzi is usually the fastest, we expect him to be their man. In the 2012 Tour of Beijing he won a stage on a climb that was pretty similar to this one and he is very fast in this kind of uphill sprint. He did well in the GP Gippingen and seems to be in pretty good condition. He is a perennial top 10 finisher who rarely wins but tomorrow could be his day.

 

Michael Albasini had an outstanding Tour de Romandie, winning three out of four road stages. Now he is back in a home race and again the race is loaded with opportunities for him. His best one may be tomorrow’s stage which suits him perfectly as he excels in this kind of uphill finishes.

 

He returned to competition in the GP Gippingen and did well to finish 5th, proving that his condition is solid. We were a bit surprised to see him lose time in today’s stage but it may have been a deliberate choice to get more freedom to attack. He could both save himself for the sprint but may also decide to attack in the finale. Both strategies could give him another WorldTour victory.

 

Enrico Gasparotto is coming out of the Giro and is using this race to prepare himself for the Italian championships. He didn’t seem to be in his best condition in the Italian grand tour but his prologue performance suggests that he has come out of the race a lot better. As a past winner of the Amstel Gold Race when it finished on the Cauberg, he is very strong in this kind of uphill sprints but he may also attack in the finale. In any case, he will have a very good chance of winning the stage.

 

Finally we will select our jokers. Sergio Henao is riding his first race for a while but he already seems to be in excellent condition. He did really well in the time trial and he was one of the strongest on the final climb in today’s stage. As an Ardennes specialist, he is very good in this kind of uphill finishes but to win the stage, the climb would probably have to be a bit harder. On the other hand, he did really well in an uphill sprint in the Giro last year and that one was easier than this one. If Henao is back at 100%, this could be his day to shine.

 

John Degenkolb is a dark horse for his stage. On paper, the final climb should be too tough for the German but in 2012 he finished 5th at the Worlds that ended just 1km after the top of the Cauberg. He has just finished an altitude training camp where he worked a lot on his climbing. This year he has been riding stronger than ever before and in Paris-Nice he survived some pretty tough climbing. We still think that this one is too hard for him but it would be dangerous to rule out the big German.

 

Ben Swift is coming out of the Giro d’Italia and so his condition is a bit uncertain but this year he has proved that he is a really excellent climber. In the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, he won a very hard stage after surviving some hard climbs in the group of favourites. Later he went on to finish 25th in the brutal Gavia-Stelvio stage in the Giro and today he was one of the only sprinters to survive the climbs. Sky are mostly focused on the GC  but Swift will be allowed to see how far he can get in this finale. He has won a hard uphill sprint in the Tour de Pologne and could have a chance in this one as well.

 

Matti Breschel is coming into this race on the back of a very strong showing in the Tour de Luxembourg and he seems to be back at his previous level. In his heydays, he did really well on some very hard courses at the world championships and if he has found back those legs, he could shine in this finale. He is usually pretty strong in an uphill sprint but this climb could be a bit too hard for him. If he is back at 100%, however, he definitely has a chance.

 

CyclingQuotes’ stage winner pick: Peter Sagan

Other winner candidates: Tom-Jelte Slagter, Bauke Mollema

Outsiders: Michael Albasini, Francesco Gavazzi, Enrico Gasparotto

Jokers: Sergio Henao, John Degenkolb, Matti Breschel