Andy Schleck (Radioshack) had hoped to continue his recent trend of growing form by performing well in yesterday's first mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse. However, the Luxembourger was dropped on the lower slopes and finished a disappointing 54th 3.32 behind winner Bauke Mollema (Blanco).

Andy Schleck has never performed well in the Tour de Suisse in the lead-up to the Tour de France but has always managed to turn things around in time for his big objective in France. At a first glance, yesterday's 54th place in the first mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse could not be regarded as a disappointment for the 2010 Tour winner.

The Luxembourger had, however, told newspaper Le Qotidien prior to the race that he had different hopes for the Swiss event this time. Having struggled to regain form after his crash in last year's Criterium du Dauphiné, the Luxembourger was hoping for good result to show that he was on right track.

His performances in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of California had both been encouraging but when he got his first chance to test his legs in the Swiss mountains, he was unable to keep up with the best. He finished with teammate Jens Voigt 3.32 behind winner Bauke Mollema.

Afterwards, sports director Kim Andersen did nothing to hide that his star rider had hoped for more.

“Today was a disappointment for Andy – he had hoped to do a good climb but it didn’t turn out that way," he said. "We will try again tomorrow and perhaps come up with another plan.”

In general, it was a bad day for Radioshack. The team's other two GC riders Maxime Monfort and Andreas Klöden finished also far behind, the Belgian conceding 1.20 in 33rd and the German 9.27 in 89th. For the latter, the results are, however, not necessarily a bad sign as he - like Schleck - has usually not been at his best in the national tour of his adopted home country.

Similarly, Monfort is not too concerned by the result and expects his legs to come around later in the race.

“It was a shortened stage but it wasn’t easy at all," he said. "I was supposed to stay with Andy if he was feeling good but that wasn’t the case so I was free to do my own climb.  But I also wasn’t feeling good.  I know from personal experience that I’m not good at beginning of Tour de Suisse so I kept working hard to limit my losses.  There is still a long way to the finish.”

Schleck, Klöden and Monfort will get their first chance to show improvement in today's third stage which includes the tough Hasliberg climb inside the final 30km of the stage. Starting at 16.55, you can follow the action on CyclingQuotes.com/live.