It has been a slow start to the season for Alexandr Kolobnev but in the Tour de Suisse the former Worlds runner-up is showing decent condition. In the very mountainous second stage of the race, he looked comfortable on the climbs and finally sprinted to a fine 10th place.

The queen stage of climbing came in the second stage of the 2014 Tour de Suisse as the peloton rode through central Switzerland on Sunday. Rain and fog were featured on the high passes, making for a hard day on the bike. The 182 km stage began in Bellinzona and ended in Sarnen.

“It was a tough stage with those four climbs and all the cold and rain, but I felt really good," Kolobnev said. "Right from the beginning I saw that Giant-Shimano had a plan, so I followed their moves.  In the end the others got away after the intermediate sprint.

"On the last climb Kreuziger and Mollema were driving the pace so hard that many riders were dropped, but Sergei Chernetckii and I were still there and that’s a good sign for us. I look forward to the rest of the week.”

Kolobnev sprinted from a chasing group to take tenth place at 14-seconds.

Cameron Meyer of Orica-GreenEdge took the victory from breakaway of three with Philip Deignan (Sky) and BMC’s Lawrence Warbasse taking third place.

Tony Martin (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step) maintained his race lead, holding six seconds over Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano) and 13-seconds to Rohan Dennis of Garmin-Sharp. Sergei Chernetckii is currently 34th, 46 seconds behind the leader.

Team director Torsten Schmidt added:

“With Alexander Kolobnev we will try to win another stage similar to this one. I’m happy that he made the sprint today. That’s a good sign. We also hope to see good results from Alexander Kristoff and Sergei Chernetckii. The Tour de Suisse is a big test. He can get some good experience here. It will be day-by-day and we won’t put pressure on him, but he can find out how far he can go in a big stage race.” 

Stage 3 on Monday in one of the longest at 203 km and brings an uphill finish. It begins in Sarnen and end in Heiden.