Having suffered in yesterday’s stage, Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) bounced back in the best possible way by winning a very dramatic final stage of the Tour de Suisse and taking a historic third consecutive overall victory in the 9-day race. Having joined Mathias Frank (IAM) and Bauke Mollema (Belkin) in a long-distance attack on the penultimate climb that spelled the end for Tony Martin’s dreams of overall victory, he finally dropped his rivals on the final climb to Saas-Fee to win the race ahead of Frank and Mollema while Martin dropped to fourth in the overall standings.

 

Going into the Tour de Suisse, Rui Costa seemed to have been hit by the curse of the rainbow jersey as he had finished second on several occasions but still hasn’t taken that elusive first victory as world champion. Today he finally opened his account and he did so in the most grandiose fashion by winning both the queen stage and a history-making third consecutive victory in the Swiss national tour.

 

Costa laid the foundations in the time trial where he finished third overall but had struggled a lot in yesterday’s first mountaintop finish. However, he still found himself in the pole position if the pre-race favourites could get rid of Tony Martin and Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano) on the hilly stage.

 

As many had predicted, Martin paid the price for his lack of team support when the action started already on the first climb of the day. When the dust had settled, Martin was almost isolated and a 17-rider group had taken off that included two of Bauke Mollema’s and two of Mathias Frank’s teammates.

 

Martin had probably seen the writing on the wall and the expected attacks from his key rivals were launched on the penultimate climb when Jonathan Fumeaux launched Frank off the front. Only Mollema and Costa could keep up with the excellent Swiss and the trio dug deep to build an advantage.

 

For a long time, Martin managed to maintain a 10-second deficit but near the top, he cracked. At the same time Sep Vanmarcke, Marcel Wyss and Johan Tschopp dropped back to help their captains and just before the top, the three GC riders had joined the front group.

 

With no teammates at his side, Martin had to rely on other teams to bring it back and it was Giant-Shimano and MTN-Qhubeka that kept the race leader in contention. At the bottom of the final climb, however, he was more than 2 minutes behind as Stef Clement and Wyss had been driving the front group at an extremely rapid pace.

 

As Martin failed to reduce his deficit by much, it was clear that the overall victory would be decided between the three GC riders in the front group. As expected, it was Frank launching the first attack and only Costa was able to keep up with him.

 

The world champion, however, was in a class on his own and moved to the front, upping the pace sufficiently to leave his Swiss companion behind. From there, he soloed all the way to the finish while Mollema managed to rejoin Frank and beat the Swiss in the sprint for third.

 

Martin rolled across the line in a bigger group 2.18 later, meaning that he dropped to fourth behind Costa, Frank and Mollema who made up the overall podium. Bjorn Thurau (Europcar) won the mountains jersey, Peter Sagan (Cannondale) took the points jersey, Frank won the jersey for best Swiss riders while Lampre-Merida secured the win in the teams classification.

 

With the Tour de Suisse now done and dusted, the attention will turn to the Tour de France which is the next event on the WorldTour. Many of the key riders in the Swiss race will use their national championships next weekend as their final warm-up event for the biggest race in the world.

 

The queen stage

After yesterday’s first mountaintop finish, the organizers had saved the hardest stage to the final day as the race ended with a short 156.5km stage from Martigny to Saas-Fee. After 30 flat kilometres, the riders tackled a category 1 and category 2 climb in quick succession before another flat stretch led to the final category 1 climb of the race. It all came to a very dramatic end on the 20km HC climb to Saas-Fee where a deserved winner of the 9-day race would be crowned.

 

As it has been the case for most of the week, the riders took the start under beautiful sunny conditions. Unfortunately, four riders didn’t sign as Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo), Mathew Hayman (Orica-GreenEDGE), Vegard Breen (Lotto Belisol) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek) all headed home, the Norwegian having fallen ill and the Swiss suffering from an inflamed arm due to his bee sting in the TT.

 

A fast start

Big mountain stages with lots of climbs are suited to long-distance breakaways and so it was no surprise that the start was extremely fast, with lots of attack being launched as the riders headed along flat valley roads. First an 8-rider group got a gap and when they were reeled in, Andrea Palini (Lampre-Merida), Aliksandr Kuschynski (Katusha), Lloyd Mondory (Ag2r), Jacopo Guarnieri (Astana) and Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ) got clear.

 

That quintet stayed clear for 3km before they were brought back and the peloton was back together by the time they hit the first category 1 climb of the day. Ion Izagirre (Movistar) tried to get clear and around the Basque a 19-rider group with the likes of Steve Morabito (BMC), Oliver Zaugg (Tinkoff-Saxo), Nino Schurter (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Johann Tschopp (IAM) formed. As the attacking continued, however, it was another 16-rider group that crested the summit with a small advantage.

 

A strong group

Jose Serpa (Lampre-Merida), Javier Moreno (Movistar), Ben Swift (Sky), Steve Morabito (BMC), Oliver Zaugg (Tinkoff-Saxo), Andy Schleck (Trek), Steven Kruijswijk (Belkin), Laurens Ten Dam (Belkin), Tom-Jelte Slagter (Garmin), Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Johann Tschopp (IAM), Warren Barguil (Giant-Shimano), Ben King (Garmin), Kevin Seeldraeyers (Wanty) and Maxime Mederel (Europcar) were 22 seconds ahead at the top of the climb, with Slagter taking maximum points ahead of Pinot and Jeannesson. On the descent, however, the break was caught and instead another move took off.

 

Ruben Plaza (Movistar), Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Katusha), Christian Knees (Sky), Silvan Dillier (BMC), Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff-Saxo), Stef Clement (Belkin), Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin), Andre Cardoso (Garmin-Sharp), Jeremy Roy (FDJ), Johann Tschopp (IAM) made up a strong 10-rider group that got to the bottom of the second climb with a 55-second advantage. On the ascent, Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ), Sander Armee (Lotto Belisol) and Marcel Wyss (IAM) bridged across and they were later followed by Steve Morabito (BMC), Oliver Zaugg (Tinkoff-Saxo), Andy Schleck (Trek) and Georg Preidler (Giant-Shimano), making it a 17-rider front group. When Clement led Tschopp and Knees over the top, the gap had grown to 1.30. At this point, bad news for Tony Martin came out as Mark Renshaw left the race, leaving the race leader with just 4 teammates at his side.

 

Frank attacks

In the valley it was kept stable at around 1.30 but it reached its maximum of 1.52 at the bottom of the penultimate climb and right from the start the front group exploded. Kuschynski was the first to get dropped and soon after Boaro and Knees also fell off the pace.

 

Behind, IAM showed their intentions as Jonathan Fumenax set a brutal pace on the front. He launched his team leader Frank off in an attack but Mollema was straight on his wheel.

 

Kreuziger explodes

Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) was riding in third position but the Czech completely exploded and so Costa had to move past the Tinkoff leader to join the move. With Frank doing all the work, the trio quickly built a 10-second gap while Martin led an exploding peloton.

 

The race leader managed to maintain the gap for a little while until he finally cracked and moved further back in the group. Meanwhile, Vanmarcke, Tschopp and Wyss had dropped back to help their teammates and a massive work by Vanmarcke was enough to bridge the gap just before the top.

 

Clement and Wyss set the pace

In the main group, the work was left to Knees who was riding for his teammate Philip Deignan and they lost a lot of ground. In the front group, Clement, Wyss and Tschopp were riding as hard as they could as Vanmarcke had now dropped off.

 

As Clement led Wyss and Tschopp over the top, the gap was already 1.05 and as more riders rejoined the yellow jersey group, they lost more ground. With 38km to go, they were 1.55 behind as Schleck and Tschopp were the first riders to get dropped by the front group.

 

The gap grows

Preidler fell out of the front group due to a mechanical while Jeannesson crashed out on the descent. In the peloton, Warren Barguil was now doing the work for his teammate Dumoulin and on the descent he got some assistance from Louis Meintjes, Knees and Martin.

 

At the bottom of the final descent, the peloton came to a standstill which caused the gap to reach 2.35 before Barguil again started to chase. He joined forces with Meintjes and Preidler and at the bottom of the final climb, they were only 2 minutes behind.

 

Dumoulin and Martin combine forces

In the front group, Clement, Tschopp and Dillier had been doing the work but as soon as they started to climb, the latter was dropped. Plaza also fell off the pace and a little later Clement also blew up. It was now a battle between Barguil and Wyss but when the former dropped off, Martin and Dumoulin made an alliance. The pair worked together and brought the gap down to 1.35 but then Dumoulin again stopped working.

 

While Armee got dropped from the front group, Martin again stated to lose ground and with 9km to go, he was 2.10 behind. He not got some help from Sergio Pardilla (MTN) before the attacking started.

 

Frank launches his attack

Eros Capecchi (Movistar) tried twice and Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) once but none of them managed to get clear. Pardilla was the next to try but it was Ten Dam who got a gap.

 

Martin went back to work and brought the Dutchman back but the attacking had reduced his deficit to just 1.35. Meanwhile, Wyss used his last bit of energy and with 3km to go, Frank made his move.

 

Costa makes his move

Mollema and Costa responded while Zaugg and Morabito were their nearest chasers. When Frank tried again, he got a gap and seemed to be riding away.

 

However, Costa looked at Mollema and saw that the Dutchman was on his limit. He put in a short acceleration to rejoin Frank and after recovering for a brief moment, he launched his own attack.

 

Costa takes the win

This time no one could respond and the world champion rode away from his rivals. Behind, Mollema rejoined Frank and for a moment, the pair seemed to be getting closer to the world champion.

 

He crested the summit 1.3km from the line with a 10-second advantage but managed to extend it in the slightly uphill final kilometre. He crossed the line with a 14-second advantage over Mollema who made use of a near-crash from Frank to put 10 seconds into the Swiss. Morabito and Zaugg made it three Swiss riders in the top 5.

 

2.18 later, Dumoulin led the yellow jersey across the line to take 9th, meaning that Martin and the Giant rider dropped to 4th and 5th respectively.