Rui Costa (Movistar) set himself well up for his title defence in the Tour de Suisse when he won today's queen stage over the mighty Albulapass. Having escaped with Bauke Mollema (Blanco), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) on the climb, he outsprinted his companions on the line while Mathias Frank (BMC) limited his losses to defend his overall lead.

Rui Costa had a hard time in the first mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse but has since then bounced back strongly. After a solid performance in Monday's stage over the Hasliberg, he put himself firmly on top of the list of favourites for the overall win when he won today's queen stage of the Swiss national Tour.

The stage took the peloton over the mighty Albulapass and from the top only 9km of fast descending was left. With 15km to go, Sky's talented Joe Dombrowski enjoyed a 35-second lead over a 20-rider peloton which was controlled by Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff). In between, Michele Scarponi (Lampre) fought hard to get up to the lone American, the Italian trying to bounce back from his bad luck earlier in the race.

At this point, the only riders left in the main group wereRoche, Kreuziger, Costa, Mollema, Schleck, Frank, Van Garderen, Spilak, Anton, Pinot, Dyachenko, Kangert, Tschopp, Martin, Amador, Pozzovivo, Peraud, Meyer, Feillu and Reichenbach and for most of the stage, the tempo had been set by the Saxo-Tinkoff team. Kreuziger had done nothing to hide his ambitions to repeat his 2008 win in the race and with Roche doing an awful lot of work, all was set for an attack by the Czech.

However, the first move came from Bauke Mollema (Blanco) who accelerated with 15km to go and the only one to immediately respond was Thobaut Pinot (FDJ). Costa clawed his way up to the duo with Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) in his wheel and they quickly passed a fading Scarponi.

Behind, overall leader Mathias Frank had been joined by Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) and Daniel Martin (Garmin) to form a chasing trio which had now also left Scarponi behind. A little further, Kreuziger was unable to finish off the work of his teammates and now struggled to limit his losses in a quartet also containing Simon Spilak (Katusha), Tanel Kangert (Astana) and a resurgent Andy Schleck (Radioshack).

Martin dropped Frank and Meyer and started to close the gap to the quartet ahead which now had Dombrowski in sight. With 11km to go, the American was caught and just at the same time Martin also made the junction. The 6 riders worked hard to increase their advantage over Meyer and Frank, Pinot and Costa clearly the stronger riders in the group.

With 11km to go, Pinot attacked but Costa responded immediately and the Frenchman got nowhere. At the same time, Spilak and Kreuziger had now left Schleck and Kangert behind, and the duo had regained contact with Frank and Meyer.

Less than 1km from the top of the climb, Costa attacked but Pinot was immediately in his wheel. Mollema and Van Garderen also clawed their way back up while Dombrowski and Martin were left behind.

Pinot crested the summit in first position to take over the lead in the mountains competition while Martin and Dombrowski had now lost 12 seconds. The Frank sextet was a further 18 seconds adrift and as Costa had started the stage 35 second behind Frank on GC, his yellow jersey was clearly in danger.

On the descent, Van Garderen just sat on as he defended his teammate Frank's position. Behind, the yellow jersey did all the work in impressive fashion and started to reduce the gap.

The Frank group caught Dombrowski and Martin while Pinot was unable to keep up with the leaders on the technical part of the descent inside the final 5km. A little later, Mollema also dropped off as Costa showed his amazing descending skills.

Disaster nearly struck with 2km to go, as the marker had fallen onto the road, thus blocking the way for Costa and Van Garderen. They had to brake before they could pass and that allowed Mollema to get a little closer.

Costa did all the work in the final part of the race and put down the hammer on the final flat stretch. When he entered the final two 90-degree bends with 300m to go, Mollema had rejoined the lead but had used up a lot of energy in the process.

Exiting the final turn, Costa opened up his sprint and despite his impressive work load, he held off Mollema and Van Garderen to take the stage win. Pinot followed 9 seconds later while Meyer beat Martin in the sprint for 5th a further 13 seconds behind.

Frank's fabulous descending had saved his overall lead and so the Swiss takes a 13-second lead over Costa into tomorrow's penultimate stage. Despite a tough climb in the early part and a category 3 climb just 5km from the finish, this could be one for the sprinters while the GC will be decided in Sunday's time trial.

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A fast start

The 206km stage from Meilen to La Punt was evidently the queen stage of the race as the mighty Albulapass was set to shake things up in the final part of the race. As it is often the case in big mountain stages, many riders attacked in the early part of the race and the riders covered more than 51km in the first hour.

The first attack was launched by Sam Bewley (Orica-GreenEdge) but the New Zealander got nowhere. Martin Elmiger's (IAM) solo escapee suffered a similar fate and the trio of Vladimir Gusev (Katusha), Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto) and Reto Hollenstein (IAM) was also brought back into the fold.

14 riders go clear

Finally, the elastic snapped, and a big 14-rider group moved ahead. Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Andreas Klöden (Radioshack), Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), 
Manuele Mori (Lampre), Damiano Caruso (Cannondale), Luis Leon Sanchez (Blanco), Michael Morkov (Team Saxo-Tinkoff), Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge), Adria Saez (Euskaltel), Tomasz Marczynski (Vacansoleil), Johannes Fröhlinger (Argos-Shimano), Georg Preidler (Argos-Shimano) and Jean-Marc Marino (Sojasun) were allowed to build up a gap of more than 5 minutes but the GC riders had big ambitions for the stage win.

Hence, the peloton started to chase and when they started the category 1 Wolfgangpass, the advantage was brought back to just 3.40. Terpstra was dropped on the climb but rejoined the front group after the top.

Saxo-Tinkoff chase

As they hit the bottom of the Albulapass with around 30km to go, the gap was down to 1.50, and it was now Saxo-Tinkoff who set a hard pace in the peloton. On the lower slopes of the climb, Matteo Tosatto and Matti Breschel swapped turns while riders started to drop off.

With 27km to go, Saez decided to attack but he was quickly passed by Sanchez. Preidler fought his way back up to the lone Spaniard while behind Saez chased on his own followed by a quartet consisting of Mori, Caruso, Klöden and Vorganov. The remainder of the original breakaway were gradually picked up by the peloton and immediately sent out the back door.

Mørkøv works hard

Breschel had now used up his energy but had been replaced by Mørkøv who had dropped back from the break and did a tremendous job for his teammate Kreuziger. Tosatto dropped off and left it to the Dane to tdo the pace-setting.

With 26km to go, Dombrowski attacked from the peloton and a little later Johann Tschopp (IAM) tried a similar move. Dombrowski quickly caught the Klöden group which had now passed Saez and the hard pace by the American forced Mori to drop off. Behind, Tschopp chased hard but was unable to get any closer to the American.

Zaugg on the front

In the peloton, Mørkøv had dropped off and the responsibility for the pace-setting was now in the hands of his teammate Oliver Zaugg. They caught Mori and a little later also Caruso while Dombrowski had now also left Klöden and Vorganov behind.

With 20km to go, the American caught Sanchez and Preidler but the Spaniard was unable to keep up with the Sky rider. Moments later, it was also over for Preidler and Dombrowski was not the sole leader.

Scarponi shows his intentions

Tschopp had also passed Klöden and Vorganov while Scarponi now played his cards. Launched by his teammate Simone Stortoni, the Italian set off in pursuit of Dombrowski and quickly passed Klöden and Vorganov who were caught by the peloton.

Mollema now indicated that he was feeling strong as he asked Lars-Petter Nordhaug to up the pace in the peloton and they quickly caught Sanchez who had fallen behind to help his leader. For a long time, the Spaniard set a furious pace that saw many riders drop off the peloton.

The hard tempo saw Preidler and Tschopp getting reeled back in while Scarponi and Dombrowski were now the only riders still ahead of the peloton. Sanchez finally finished his work and thus left it to Roche to set the pace in the main group. Moments later, Mollema attacked, thus starting the exciting finale from which Costa emerged as the strongest rider in the race.

Result:

1. Rui Costa 5.11.08

2. Bauke Mollema

3. Tejay Van Garderen

4. Thibaut Pinot +0.09

5. Cameron Meyer +0.22

6. Daniel Martin

7. Roman Kreuziger

8. Simon Spilak

9. Mathias Frank

10. Joe Dombrowski

General classification:

1. Mathias Frank 25.41.36

2. Rui Costa +0.13

3. Roman Kreuziger +0.23

4. Thibaut Pinot +0.44

5. Bauke Mollema +0.46

6. Tejay Van Garderen +1.17

7. Daniel Martin +1.23

8. Cameron Meyer +1.42

9. Tanel Kangert +1.43

10. Simon Spilak +1.50

Points classification:

1. Peter Sagan 55

2. Arnaud Demare 50

3. Alexander Kristoff 41

4. Bauke Mollema 35

5. Matthew Goss 30

Mountains classification:

1. Thibaut Pinot 26

2. Robert Vrecer 19

3. Rui Costa 17

4. Manuele Mori 15

5. Alexandr Kolobnev 15

Sprint classification:

1. Enrique Sanz 13

2. Adrian Saez 13

3. Robert Vrecer 9

4. Luis-Leon Sanchez 7

5. Alexandr Kolobnev 7

Teams classification:

1. Astana 77.16.31

2. BMC +1.38

3. Movistar +3.15

4. Ag2r +5.12

5. Katusha +8.01