After a frustrating start to the race, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) got an important confidence boost for the Tour de France when he beat Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) in a fantastic uphill sprint on stage 7 of the Tour de Suisse. After he had positioned perfectly, he had a second acceleration left when Sagan approached him rapidly in the finale and he managed to hold off the Slovakian to take his first stage win in the race. Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) was caught out behind a split and lost 5 seconds to Geraint Thomas (Sky) but still managed to defend his yellow jersey.

Alexander Kristoff tops the list of victories in his magical 2015 season and he entered the Tour de Suisse on a high after he won the traditional warm-up race, GP Kanton Aargau, just two days before the start of the race. However, the first part of the event has been hugely frustrating for the Norwegian who has found the going tough and admitted that he has not been feeling great.

The first stages of the race were two hard for the Norwegian who was frustrated to miss out on the opportunity to sprint for the win on stage 4 where Orica-GreenEDGE and Tinkoff-Saxo made it too tough for the big Norwegian. Yesterday he missed another big opportunity in the first real sprint stage of the race when he came up short in a finale that was too technical for a power sprinter like Kristoff.

Today things finally came together for the strong Norwegian when he powered clear to win the tough uphill sprint in stage 7. After a great performance he managed to hold off Peter Sagan in a hugely exciting duel that was reminiscent of the one that had given him his first WorldTour stage victory in this race in 2013.

However, it required a huge effort by the entire team to bring it back together for a sprint. A formidable trio of Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep), Silvan Dillier (BMC) and Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) had an advantage of 30 seconds as they entered the final 15km but the gap was not really coming down despite the hard efforts by Wanty, Tinkoff-Saxo and Lotto Soudal.

This forced Katusha into action as they lined out their team on the front. Sergey Lagutin was the first to start to work and while Impey led Kwiatkowski and Dillier across the line in the final intermediate sprint, he got some assistance from Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo).

With 10km to go, the gap was still 30 seconds and while Thibaut Pinot was working his way back to the front after a puncture, Daniel Moreno took over the pace-setting for Katusha. When he swung off, Viacheslav Kuznetsov and Dmitry Kozontchuk were next in line and their work paid off as the gap started to slowly come down.

With 7km to go, the gap was still 25 seconds and now Katusha was running out of domestiques. When the two Russians swung off, the team had to use their lead-out man Marco Haller who brought the gap down to 15 seconds with 4km to go.

Lagutin managed to rebound and took a few turns alongside Jeremy Roy (FDJ) but the gap was still 10 seconds with 3km to go. Haller again took a huge turn while the fight for position behind the Austrian, Jacopo Guarnieri and Kristoff was huge.

With 2km to go Borut Bozic took a turn for Astana before Luka Pibernik hit the front for Lampre-Merida. His pull was enough to bring the break back, with Impey being the first to sit up.

Kwiatkowski attacked again and he managed to reopen his advantage. That was the signal for Kristoff’s lead-out man Guarnieri to hit the front and he managed to bring the world champion back with 800m to go.

The Italian took a breather behind the Pole before Daniele Bennati moved up. However, his sprinter Peter Sagan preferred to stay a little further back and so the Italian ended up giving Kristoff the perfect lead-out.

When the Norwegian launched his sprint, Sagan found himself in third position behind Kristoff and Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) and as the Spaniard sat up, the Slovakian suddenly had a gap to bridge. He approached the Norwegian quickly but when he moved up alongside his rival, the Katusha sprinter had an extra acceleration. Kristoff kicked again and in a hugely exciting battle, he managed to hold the Slovakian off to win the stage while Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) was a distant third.

There was a small split in the finale which meant that race leader Pinot lost another 5 seconds to second-placed Geraint Thomas (Sky). However, he still has an advantage of 37 seconds over the Welshman as he goes into the final road stage of the race. The penultimate stage is a circuit race held on a lumpy circuit around Bern. The course is constantly up and down with two category 3 climbs and the latter summits just 2.5km from the finish, with the final section being flat.

A hilly finale

After yesterday’s sprint stage, the fast finishers were expected to get another chance in stage 7 which brought the riders over 164.6km from Biel to Düdingen. After a flat first part, the riders got to the lumpy 36.8km finishing circuit that they would cover twice. The circuit included two category 3 climbs in the first half but had several smaller ascents too. After a mostly descending second part, the final kilometres were uphill, with the final kilometre averaging 3.5%.

Julien Vermote (Etixx-QuickStep) who hurt his hip in a crash late in yesterday’s stage, was a non-starter when the remaining 144 riders gathered in Biel on a sunny day. They got the race off to a very fast start with numerous attacks and it took a long time for the early break to be formed.

A strong break

Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) was one of the most active riders and his many attacks paid off as he was part of the very strong group that finally got clear. He was joined by Silvan Dillier (BMC), Axel Domont (Ag2r) and Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) to form a formidable quartet that had an advantage of 2.50 at the 28km mark.

The gap went out to a maximum of 4.08 when 128km remained but the peloton knew that they could not give such a strong group too much leeway. After an hour during which 47.7km were covered, Giant-Alpecin and Tinkoff-Saxo hit the front and they started to bring the break back.

Tinkoff-Saxo up the pace

With 104km to go, the escapees were only 2.51 ahead and 22km later they had lost another 36 seconds. At this point, the BMC duo of Manuel Senni and Ben Hermans was involved in a crash.

At the first passage of the finish line, the gap was still around 2 minutes but Tinkoff-Saxo had planned to make the race hard in the hillier terrain on the circuit. While Enrico Gasparotto (Wanty) left the race, the Russian team accelerated hard and after they had contested the first two KOM sprints, the gap was only 55 seconds. Impey led Domont, Kwiatkowski and Dillier over the top of the first climb while Domont, Kwiatkowski, Impey and Dillier was the order of passage on the second climb.

The gap grows

Pavel Brutt and Nikolay Trusov were working hard for Tinkoff-Saxo but now the escapees were going full gas. After Domont had led Kwiatkowski and Impey across the line in the first intermediate sprint, they had managed to extend their advantage to 1.25 as they entered the final 45km.

Dillier led the front group across the line to start the second lap of the circuit while Brutt and Trusov swung off at the bottom of the uphill finishing straight. Instead, Matti Breschel took a short turn for Tinkoff-Saxo before Michael Valgren and Michael Mørkøv took over.

Valgren does some damage

The Danes rode at a fast pace and had brought the gap down to 1 minute with 30km to go. Riders were getting dropped as the fight for position started and now Johannes Fröhlinger also lent a hand for Giant-Alpecin.

As they hit the first climb, Domont was dropped from the break and he crested the summit a few seconds behind Impey, Dillier and Kwiatkowski who had crossed the line in that order. Valgren was doing a lot of damage in the peloton while riders like Fabian Cancellara and Adriano Malori were dropped.

Majka hits the front

After the top, Valgren and Fröhlinger traded pulls before Majka took over when they hit the second climb. Here Kwiatkowski led Impey and Dillier over the top 45 seconds ahead of the peloton.

Kwiatkowski was taking some huge turns but the gap was still only 30 seconds when they entered the final 30 seconds. Jurgen Van den Broeck (Lotto Soudal) and Mirko Selvaggi (Wanty) were now working with Majka in the peloton but the gap still stabilized. This forced Katusha to kick into action and in the end their efforts paid off with another win for Kristoff.