It looked like bad luck would again destroy the race for Fabian Cancellara but the Swiss bounced back with a great ride to win the prologue. However, he is under pressure from Jurgen Roelandts who will do his utmost to take back the single second that would allow him to take the yellow jersey and the Belgian should find plenty of terrain to do so in the first road stage which suits him and his Lotto Soudal team really well.

 

The course

The Tour de Suisse has always been a treat for strong sprinters and classics riders. The race usually includes two time trials and a few mountain stages while the rest of the race is made up of lumpy stages. There aren’t any flat places in Switzerland and so the organizers have always liked to end their stages on tricky finishing circuits with small climbs. Hence, it is no mystery that Peter Sagan has the record for most stage wins and that the race has traditionally been the preferred Tour de France preparation for riders like Alexander Kristoff and John Degenkolb. This year the strong sprinters and classics riders will have tons of opportunities in the first half of the race, starting with the opening road stage.

 

In the last two years, the starting city has had the honour of hosting both the prologue and a circuit race on the second day. This year the city of Baar will welcome the riders for the opening weekend. After the relatively flat prologue, they will offer the riders a challenging circuit for the 187.6km second stage. It is made up of four laps of a 47.6km circuit, with the first few kilometres of the first lap being neutralized.

 

The main challenge of the circuit is the category 2 climb of Dorfstrasse which starts juts 1.2km after the passage of the line. It averages 4.2% over 5.4km but the road continues to climb for another 5.5km. From there, the terrain is mainly descending but there is a small uphill section of 2.5km at an average gradient of 3.2% whose top comes with 16.6km to go. The descent ends with around six kilometres to go and from there, the terrain is rolling. The final 1.5km are slightly uphill at 0.5-1%. There are turns with 2km and 600m to go respectively.

 

Baar last hosted a stage in 2001 when Gianluca Bortolami beat Petr Wrolich in a 2-rider sprint.

 

 

 

The weather

The Tour de Suisse has often been marred by bad weather and it seems that the 2016 edition could be one of the wettest. Rain is forecasted for the entire race. Tomorrow there is an 80% chance of rain throughout the entire stage and a maximum temperature of 18 degrees.

 

There will be a light wind from a westerly direction which means that it will mainly be a tailwind in the first part of the circuit, then headwind and finally a tailwind in the final kilometres. In the finale, it will be cross-tailwind until the riders turn into a tailwind with 600m to go.

 

The favourites

It would have been heartbreaking if things had again gone wrong for Fabian Cancellara. The Swiss has had so much bad luck all year. He crashed several times in the classics and fell ill at the Giro d’Italia. Now he almost missed out on a final stint in yellow in his home race when rain started to fall just as he was getting ready to roll down the ramp. However, the Swiss proved his huge class and it was simply a real demonstration of force to win the stage in such difficult conditions.

 

The big surprise was of course Jurgen Roelandts. Of course the Belgian benefited from the fact that he did his prologue in the best possible conditions but he still managed to beat great prologue riders like Martin Elmiger and Ion Izagirre who also rode at that time. It’s a solid indication of form for the Belgian Championships where he aims to make up for last year’s huge disappointment (he was beaten by Preben Van Hecke in a two-rider sprint) and proves that he great performance at the Giro was no fluke.

 

It was also a pleasure to see Luke Durbridge do his first good time trial for a long time. The Australian was set to be a real TT king during his U23 career and got his pro career off to such a great start. However, while he has become a lot stronger in the road races, he has barely done a good TT for two years. This is a sign that he is finally back on track.

 

When it comes to the GC battle, it was no surprise that Ion Izagirre, Wilco Kelderman and Geraint Thomas were the big winners. Among the overall contenders, they are the only prologue specialists so they were always going to gain time. They all looked strong, especially Kelderman and Thomas who didn’t have completely dry roads for their rides. There were also very encouraging signs from Pierre Latour, Miguel Angel Lopez, Robert Gesink and Michele Scarponi who did better than expected. The big losers were Tejay van Garderen, Simon Spilak and Rui Costa who all had wet roads for their prologue so we can’t base much on their performance. In the end, the seconds lost here won’t mean much at the end of such a hard race.

 

Cancellara now has the yellow jersey which he hopes to defend until Wednesday’s first mountain stage. However, he is under threat from Roelandts who just needs to pick up a single second to take the lead. He can do so in both the intermediate sprints and at the finish and there is little doubt that Lotto Soudal will do their best to find that elusive second during the next three stages.

 

He will get his first chance in stage 2 which suits him pretty well. The hilly circuit is a tough one but with the good form that he has shown, Roelandts should be able to survive. Lotto Soudal would love it to come down to a reduced bunch sprint where he can go for a spot in the top 3.

 

He is not the only rider with that goal. The stage is also a big goal for Orica-GreenEDGE, Tinkoff and Etixx-QuickStep who have the three best sprinters here and they are all here without any GC goals. For them, it is all about the first three road stages and they will do their utmost to get a sprint tomorrow.

 

However, the circuit is a tough one so many riders want to attack. Usually, the first road stage has a pretty controlled start but on such a lumpy circuit, we should have more aggression. Strong classics riders like Philippe Gilbert, Michael Albasini, Zdenek Stybar, Petr Vakoc, Dries Devenyns and Maurits Lammertink will be attentive in the first part of the stage. With a tough start, we could very well get a pretty strong breakaway. However, the likes of Albasini, Stybar and Vakoc will probably have to work for their sprinters and are probably not allowed to initiate any moves themselves.

 

When the group has gone clear, Trek will take control as they want to defend the jersey. Tinkoff will lend them a hand and if they have no rider in the break, Orica-GreenEDGE and Etixx-QuickStep will do so too. The circuit is hard and difficult to control but those teams are strong enough to keep things in check. That means that we don’t give the early break much of a chance.

 

The big risk will be the attacks on the final climb. We won’t be surprised if Albasini is allowed to go with the moves as it will give Orica-GreenEDGE more cards to play. If a strong group of classics riders gets clear, they won’t be easy to bring them back. However, the climb comes very far from the finish and the final part is mainly descending. Hence, we expect it to come down to a reduced bunch sprint but four passages of such a long climb will be enough to send many riders out the back door. We definitely won’t have a complete peloton in the end.

 

The final intermediate sprint will play an important role. It comes just 12km from the finish and Lotto Soudal probably want things to be together at that point. Roelandts has a better chance here than he has in the final sprint so he will be going for the elusive second here. He is a fast sprinter but don’t rule Cancellara out. The Swiss is very fast too as he has proved so many times at the Worlds and Milan-Sanremo so there is no guarantee that he won’t be able to beat Roelandts.

 

If it comes down to a sprint, it is important to note that there is a late turn just 600m from the line. Apart from that, the finale is not too technical but you can’t be too far back in that corner if you want to win the stage. This means that lead-out and team support will be pretty important. Furthermore, the finish is uphill but it’s almost unnoticeable and should not play any major role.

 

The sprinting field at the Tour de Suisse is usually pretty stacked but this year there aren’t many fast finishers here. This should make the finales a bit less hectic and the battle for position less intense. Depending on how hard the race turns out to be, it will also be a smaller field at the finish and this should also contribute to making things more manageable.

 

When it comes to speed, there is little doubt that Fernando Gaviria is the fastest rider in this race. The Colombian has made riders like Cavendish and Greipel look like neo-pros at last year’s Tour de San Luis and Tour of Britain respectively. This year he rode to a dominant sprint win in a very classy field at Tirreno-Adriatico. There is no doubt that Gaviria is the future top sprinter.

 

However, Gaviria has had a complicated build-up for this race. He was injured throughout the month of May and so missed the races in Frankfurt, Dunkirk and California. He only returned to racing at Heistse Pijl where he sent rather mixed signals. On one hand, he was riding strongly to get into a break in the finale and when they hit the final cobbled climb with less than 2km to go, he attacked hard. However, he blew up in a spectacular fashion and was nowhere to be seen at the finish.

 

That race proved that he is not at 100% yet but his level is definitely not bad. He is an excellent climber who has done really well on tough stages in the past and he was up there in the finales of all the classics he did this year. On the other hand, those races also showed that he seems to lose quite a bit of speed at the end of a hard race and if Tinkoff and Orica-GreenEDGE can make this race really tough, it may cost him some speed in the end. Furthermore, his form may not be good enough to surviv such a hard race.

 

On the other hand, Gaviria is hugely talented and such talents never need much racing to reach their best form. Furthermore, Gaviria likes an uphill sprint and with Maximilano Richeze at his side, he has one of the best lead-out men in the world. There are no guarantees that Richeze will survive the climbs but he was pretty strong in California and usually climbs pretty well. Yves Lampaert, Zdenek Stybar and Petr Vakoc will provide more firepower to the lead-out and if they can get Gaviria to the final turn in a good position, the Colombian should win the stage.

 

His biggest rival is like to be Peter Sagan. After a few bad years, the Slovakian has been back at his best level since last year’s Tour of California. Most recently, he did very well in the American race where he impressed the entire world by attacking in a solo move on the very hard stage 7, sitting up to wait for the peloton and finally sprinting to a very close second place behind Alexander Kristoff. That race proved that he is back in very good condition and since then he has stayed in the US to prepare for the Tour.

 

In general, Sagan has probably been sprinting better in recent months. Usually, he is not fast enough to challenge the pure sprinters but he has done so on numerous occasions this year. Most notably, he won the first stage in California in a ‘real’ sprint. He likes this kind of tough stage where his rivals will be more fatigued and the late turn and uphill finale suits him too. He has a full team at his side but the lead-out is not impressive. However, that’s never much of a disadvantage for Sagan who is a master in positioning. Having sprinted so well all year, Sagan is a very likely winner of this stage.

 

Michael Matthews shares many of Sagan’s characteristics. The Australian climbs excellently and even though he hasn’t raced since the classics, there is no doubt that his form is great. He has just prepared himself at a training camp and as he has proved on several occasions, he knows how to reach peak condition without doing any racing. This is the kind of hilly sprint stage that he likes and his only complaint is probably that he would have preferred it to be harder.

 

Like Sagan, Matthews is not a pure sprinter but this year he has been sprinting really well. He beat the likes of Bouhanni and Kristoff in sprint at Paris-Nice which was a bit of a surprise. On paper, he is not as fast as Sagan and Gaviria but he has an advantage over Sagan when it comes to the lead-out. Michael Albasini and Magnus Cort are both fast riders who can handle this kind of tough stage and if Richeze is not there to help Gaviria, Matthews could very well be the first sprinter through the final turn. That definitely gives him a real shot at victory.

 

Danny Van Poppel may not be climbing as well as Sagan and Matthews but he is constantly getting stronger. We were very impressed by his performance in California where he was up there in some very tough stages. It’s just another step in his constant progression after he surprised on a few occasions in 2015 too. However, he is still very inconsistent and there are never any guarantees about what kind of climbing legs he has.

 

Van Poppel likes uphill sprints and has been sprinting really well since he returned from a knee injury in the spring. He was good in California and won a stage in Yorkshire. We expect him to be there in the end but the main problem is that he won’t have much of a lead-out as Sky are here with a team of climbers.

 

As usual, the big joker is Juan Jose Lobato. The Spaniard is very fast, especially in an uphill sprint but there’s probably no sprinter with worse positioning skills. Lobato often finishes outside the top 10 and never gets a real chance to sprint because he is too far back in the finale. Things are not made any easier by the fact that he doesn’t have much support. The late turn won’t make things easier for the Movistar sprinter and the wet roads are no advantage either. However, he seems to have become a bit more consistent recently as he did pretty well in Sarthe in April. Now he has had a long break from racing and so nobody knows how he is going. His climbing is also pretty inconsistent so you never know whether he’ll survive. However, he is one of the select few with the speed to win the stage.

 

Lotto Soudal desperately want that yellow jersey and they will do their best in the sprint.  Usually, they would probably go for Tosh van der Sande in a sprint like this but with Roelandts in jersey contention, the classics specialist will be their protected rider. He is not a pure sprinter but as his third place in Milan-Sanremo proves he is fast at the end of a hard race.However, what really makes him a contender for this stage is his lead-out. with Pim Ligthart, van der Sande and Tiesj Benoot to help in the sprint preparation, Roelandts could be one of the first sprinters through the final corner.

 

Davide Cimolai doesn’t win a lot but when he does, it’s often on the biggest scene. Last year he won a stage at Paris-Nice and this year he won a stage in Catalonia. Cimolai has just returned from the Tour of Japan where he won a stage but he didn’t really impress in the sprints in that relatively small race. It’s hard to gauge his condition on that race but on paper he likes a sprint at the end of a hard race and his main specialty is an uphill sprint. Unfortunately, he will only have Yukiya Arashiro for the lead-out.

 

Trek are here with the strong pair of Jasper Stuyven and Kiel Reijnen who both specialize in sprints at the end of a fast race. It is hard to say who’ll be the protected rider but this year it seems that Stuyven has been slightly ahead in the internal hierarchy. Hence, we expect the team to ride in support of the Belgian who has proved that he can sprint consistently well. They may both miss the speed to win the stage but by working together they can get far.

 

However, they may also go for Fabian Cancellara in the sprint. The Swiss has to make sure that Roelandts doesn’t get any bonus seconds and he is pretty fast in an uphill sprint at the end of a hard race. It won’t be easy for him to beat the faster sprinters but you can’t rule out a good sprint from the in-form home favourite.

 

We are curious to see what Andrea Pasqualon can do at the WorldTour level. The Italian did some very good sprints in 2015 and won a stage in Boucles de la Mayenne. However, he failed to find his best form in the spring which was a big disappointment for the Italian fastman. Now he is back on track as he rode well in Mayenne and most recently he was second behind Nizzolo in Gippingen last Thursday. He is not fast enough to win a pure sprint but he is strong at the end of a hard race. Unfortunately, he won’t have much support.

 

After a bad spring season, Matti Breschel seems to be back on track. Recently, he has been in the top 10 in both Heistse Pijl and GP Kanton Aargau. If he is back at 100%, this kind of hilly race is what he prefers and he should have no trouble getting over the climbs. He is probably not fast enough to win but with Patrick Bevin at his side he has a good lead-out.

 

Kevin Reza joined FDJ to get more personal opportunities in reduced bunch sprints so he will be eager to show himself here. After a slow start to the year, he was glad to finally be back on form in Picardie in May so if he has maintained that condition he should be able to survive here. Unfortunately, he will be pretty lonely in the sprints and he has never been very good at positioning.

 

Dimension Data will give Reinardt van Rensburg a rare chance to sprint. The South African is strong in hilly terrain – after all he won the Tour de Langkawi earlier this year – and when he gets an opportunity, he usually sprints pretty well. He is not a pure sprinter but in Langkawi he proved that he has the speed to challenge some really fast guys. He rode in the break in Gippingen and so proved that the form is good.

 

Philippe Gilbert is here to win a stage and in Luxembourg he proved that he is back on track after his disastrous spring. He has set his sights on the first three stages and this is one of his best chances. The Belgian is always competitive in reduced bunch sprints, especially when it’s slightly uphill. He has a pretty strong lead-out train but he is probably not fast enough to win.

 

The stage should be too hard for Tom Van Asbroeck and so Paul Martens is likely to be the LottoNL-Jumbo sprinter. The German had a very bad spring but was very pleased to get back into form for the Tour of Norway. He did very well in the hard stages at that race and he has won reduced bunch sprints in the past. Unfortunately, he is probably not fast enough to win sprints at this lvel.

 

Sergey Lagutin, Sergei Chernetskii, Sven Erik Bystrøm, Silvan Dillier, Yukiya Arashiro, Simon Geschke, Patrick Bevin, Tiesj Benoot, Martin Elmiger, Jarlinson Pantano, Maciej Paterski, Simone Ponzi, Maurits Lammertink, Michel Kreder and Jordi Simon may all try their hand in a reduced bunch sprint too.

 

CyclingQuotes’ stage winner pick: Fernando Gaviria

Other winner candidates: Peter Sagan, Michael Matthews

Outsiders: Danny Van Poppel, Juan Jose Lobato, Jurgen Roelandts, Davide Cimolai

Jokers: Jasper Stuyven, Andrea Pasqualon, Fabian Cancellara, Matti Breschel, Kevin Reza, Reinardt Van Rensburg, Paul Martens, Philippe Gilbert, Kiel Reijnen