Alexander Kristoff (Kastusha) won his first ever WorldTour race in today's fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse as the big Norwegian produced an extremely powerful sprint to overtake Peter Sagan (Cannondale) before the line in the uphill finish. On a calm day for the GC riders, Mathias Frank (BMC) finished safely in the bunch to defend his 23-second lead over Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff).

During the last year, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) has been one of the most consistent sprinters on the WorldTour but until today he had never been able to actually win one of the most prestigious races. Today he finally got it all right when he produced a powerful sprint to win the fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse.

The final 500m had an incline of 4% and so suited the real power sprinters, and Kristoff is certainly one of those. Early in the race his intentions were clear as he was always well-positioned near the front of the peloton and well-protected by numerous teammates.

Inside the final 2 kilometres he was brought into position by a teammate who took a huge turn on the front with his Norwegian sprinter in third position. Next in line was Baden Cooke who was working for his Orica-GreenEdge sprinter Matthew Goss.

Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) had high hopes for Jacopo Guarnieri and under the flamme rouge, the Kazakh set a hard pace. Kristoff remained in fourth position but fell back when Cannondale moved ahead to set up Peter Sagan.

Michel Koch did a huge work for his Slovakian captain and as the road started to point slightly upwards, Sagan moved into the wheel of Simon Geschke (Argos-Shimano) who looked behind to find his sprinter John Degenkolb. At this point Matti Breschel (Saxo-Tinkoff) moved forward with Kristoff firmly placed in his wheel.

Breschel opened a long sprint while Kristoff and Sagan both put down their hammer from their positions just behind the Dane. Breschel was no match to the duo who were locked in a tight battle until Sagan finally faded. Kristoff opened up a solid gap to take his first ever WorldTour win while Arnaud Demare (FDJ) passed Breschel to take the final spot on the podium.

Mathias Frank finished safely in 23rd place to defend to defend his lead over Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) and will enjoy his third consecutive day in the yellow jersey tomorrow. The 187,9km stage has some climbs in the end but should once again be one for the sprinters.

Starting at 16.55, you can follow the action on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

4 riders move clear

The 178,4km was destined to end in a bunch sprint and so few riders were in a big hurry to join the day's early move. After a few kilometres, Stijn Devolder (Radioshack), Serge Pauwels (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Sebastien Minard (Ag2r) and Cyril Lemoine (Sojaun) got clear and started to open up a gap.

The peloton had, however, been learned a lesson from yesterday's stage where Jens Voigt (Radioshack) was only caught with 1500m to go. Hence, the sprinters' teams were in no mood to allow the break too much leeway and when the gap had reached around to minutes, Cannondale and FDJ started to chase to keep it under control.

Visconti abandons

Unfortunately, Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) who had started the stage in 4th place, crashed early in the stage. The double Giro stage winner was brought to the hospital, thus leaving only Rui Costa to fight for the Movistar team in the GC.

Cedric Pineau (FDJ), Paolo Longo Borghini (Cannondale) and Ted King (Cannondale) did much of the early work and they were later joined by Jonas Ahlstrand (Argos-Shimano). For most of the day, the quartet kept the gap at around 2 minutes and when they crossed the finish line to start the first of two laps on a 26,5km finishing circuit, the gap had been reduced to 1.50.

The peloton slows down

The peloton decided to slow down on the first of two climbs on the circuit and that saw the advantage grow dramatically to 2.45. As soon as they crested the summit, they were, however, back into full pursuit with Orica-GreenEdge's Sam Bewley now also lending a hand.

The gap came down quite rapidly but on the second climb, it was once again time to take the foot off the gas. That allowed Michael Mørkøv (Saxo-Tinkoff) to slip off the front in an attempt to bridge the gap to the leaders but as the peloton once again sped up on the descent, the Dane was quickly back into the fold.

Scarponi crashes again

At this time - with 34km to go - a crash brought down Michele Scarponi (Lampre), Jens Debusschere (Lotto), Tomasz Marczynski (Vacansoleil) and Demare. While the latter was unhurt, the former has had no luck in this race and he faced a long chase before he finally rejoined the peloton.

Pineau had been replaced by Jeremy Roy (FDJ) on the front and with Longo Borghini, King, Ahlstrand, Bewley and Roy all riding extremely fast, the gap was down to just 20 seconds when they crossed the line to start the final lap on the circuit.

Roche rides aggressively

On the first climb, Saxo-Tinkoff decided to race aggressively, and Nicolas Roche set a hard pace that reeled in the escape with 24km to go and saw many riders drop off. The Irishman did, however, stop his effort after the descent and instead the BMC team of race leader Frank now controlled the pace.

As they approached the final climb, the IAM team decided to put the rival sprinters of Heinrich Haussler and Reto Hollenstein, Thomas Löfkvist and Martin Elmiger set a torturous pace on the slopes. Jorge Azanza (Euskaltel) made a short attack to pick up the mountain points but was quickly brught back into the fold. The climb was, however, not hard enough to make a real difference, and after the descent IAM stopped their effort as very few riders had been dropped.

BMC takes control

Again BMC took over the responsibility while the sprinters' teams now started to battle for positions behind. Katusha was the first team to up the pace a little bit further and with 6km to go, Matteo Tosatto, Daniele Bennati and Roman Kreuziger strung out the peloton for Saxo-Tinkoff.

Sky, IAM and BMC all had moments at the front inside the final 5km of the stage but with 2km to go, Katusha took over with Kristoff close behind. The Norwegian finished off the work of his teammates by beating Sagan in the sprint to finally break his victory drought in the WorldTour races.

Result:

1. Alexander Kristoff 4.08.29

2. Peter Sagan

3. Arnaud Demare

4. Matti Breschel

5. Heinrich Haussler

6. Matthew Goss

7. Davide Cimolai

8. Jacopo Guarnieri

9. Boy Van Poppel

10. Daryl Impey

General classification:

1. Mathias Frank 15.56.30

2. Roman Kreuziger +0.23

3. Rui Costa +0.35

4. Thibaut Pinot +0.57

5. Bauke Mollema +1.08

6. Daniel Martin +1.23

7. Tanel Kangert +1.26

8. Jean-Christophe Peraud +1.28

9. Tejay Van Garderen +1.39

10. Cameron Meyer +1.42

Points classification:

1. Peter Sagan 44

2. Arnaud Demare 41

3. Alexander Kristoff 36

3. Bauke Mollema 23

4. Heinrich Haussler 31

5. Matthew Goss 30

Mountains classification:

1. Robert Vrecer 19

2. Roman Kreuziger 12

3. Serge Pauwels 12

4. Jens Voigt 12

5. Olivier Kaisen 10

Sprint classification:

1. Enrique Sanz 13

2. Robert Vrecer 9

3. Jens Voigt 7

4. Marcus Burghardt 6

5. Hayden Roulston 6

Teams classification:

1. Astana 47.55.10

2. Movistar +0.30

3. Ag2r +0.32

4. BMC +1.44

5. IAM +3.00