South African Daryl Impey was the stand out ORICA-GreenEDGE rider in stage 7 of the Tour de Suisse as he set a storming pace with a breakaway group, which stayed out front for most of the race, only caught by the peloton with just over 1km to go.

As well as a strong individual effort by Impey, the rest of the team rode well, including Michael Albasini who finished in 8th and Esteban Chaves who remains in 13th position in the general classification, 3.12 off the leader Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) with two stages to go.

“We went out there strong today, and tried to give everyone a chance to get into a breakaway,” said Impey. “I rode sensibly and it felt like we worked hard out front and timed things well. We needed around 20 seconds in the last kilometre, but we only had around 11 seconds. It wasn’t quite enough.”

“I am happy that my form is going in the right direction, but tomorrow is going to be a tough course. We want to try and win a stage though, and I will work hard to try and get one of the boys into the breakaway,” he finished.

“Today was a really strong ride from Daryl,” said sport director Neil Stephens. “We were happy to have him up there at the front, and he really did help hold off the group until the death. We were really going out there today to get a result, and we did well, with Daryl riding strongly and an 8th place for Michael (Albasini). That is a great result for him.

“Tomorrow will be another aggressive race, but we will continue to try and get a result, and work hard to maintain Esteban’s general classification position, or at least keep him in the top 15.”

The 164.4km stage from Biel/ Bienne to Dudingen was very much a stage for the sprinters, and after the breakaway group was caught by the bunch, it was Kristoff Alexander (Team Katusha) who outsprinted stage 6 winner Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) to take the win on the line.

The penultimate stage of the Tour de Suisse starts and finishes in Switzerland’s capital Bern tomorrow, with a 4-lap circuit race on a 38.7km course, which will also be used in stage 9 for the time trial. The course includes a category 3 climb close to the finish and covers an overall distance of 152.5km