Tour de Suisse: Porte Extends Lead

Richie Porte extended his lead by 12 seconds on the queen stage of the Tour de Suisse with an impressive late attack on the short, steep final climb to cross the line in sixth place.

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Tour de Suisse: Porte Extends Lead

Richie Porte extended his lead by 12 seconds on the queen stage of the Tour de Suisse with an impressive late attack on the short, steep final climb to cross the line in sixth place. With two hors categorie climbs in the first two thirds of the 186km stage, and a sharp category three kick up before the finish line, all of the teams were interested in having a rider in the breakaway which resulted in an 18-rider group that went clear on the run into the Furkapass.

Porte’s teammates began controlling the race immediately and kept the breakaway’s advantage to three minutes at the summit of the climb before navigating the technical descent. Michael Schär set a fierce pace on the descent and second climb, which prevented any riders from attempting to bridge to the breakaway and towards the summit of the Klausenpass, Rein Tarramae (Direct Energie) attacked from the breakaway to go alone over the top.

The remaining breakaway riders descended one minute behind Tarramae while behind, the peloton relaxed their grip and allowed the gap to go out to five minutes. Alessandro De Marchi put in a huge effort in the final 30km to bring the regrouped breakaway’s advantage down to three minutes and as the breakaway reached the steep climb with 3km to go, their advantage was inside two minutes.
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Stefan Küng and Greg Van Avermaet delivered Porte to the bottom of the climb and as the steep gradient took its toll, Porte unleashed with 1.3km remaining with a strong attack that put many riders in difficulty. With a quick glance behind him to see the damage done, Porte attacked again, this time creating a gap, and continued to power up the climb in pursuit of the remaining breakaway riders.

Soren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb) took the win and Porte crossed the line in sixth place to finish 12 seconds ahead of his General Classification rivals. Porte now leads by 32 seconds over Wilco Kelderman and Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb) with three stages remaining, including the Arosa summit finish on stage 7.

Richie Porte: “I think that after the amount of work that the team did for me today, I had to do something. I didn’t really expect to take time like that. I wasn’t feeling great yesterday but today I had a better day and the team was incredible for me. Each and every one of the guys was really good especially Michi Schär. He rode most of the stage for me. It’s good coming into the Tour.”

“The guys put me in a great position and they looked after me so I am happy with how the day went. This is a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France and it really showed today that we are there. It was good to take a little bit more time on some strong time trialists today. Tomorrow on paper is maybe better for me and I am super motivated.”

“Allan Peiper said on the radio ‘Richie if you have any gas, you gotta go,’ and I actually thought I had hit out a bit too early but when I heard that they were cracking, I dug in a little bit more. It really hurt but it is nice to take some extra time.”

Stage 6 Fiesch > Gomminswald (186km)
Top 3: 1. Soren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb), 2. Nathan Haas (Katusha Alpecin), 3. Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain Merida).

BMC Racing Team top 3: 6. Richie Porte, 35. Greg Van Avermaet, 55. Stefan Küng

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