Having lost their three GC riders due to crashes and illness, Team Sky have not had much luck in the Tour de Suisse. Today, however, they bounced back with a great showing as both Philip Deignan and Joe Dombrowski managed to finish with race leader Tony Martin in the queen stage.

Team Sky had numbers to the fore on the final day at the Tour de Suisse but were unable to contest for the stage victory.

For the second day in succession Christian Knees made his way into the day’s break, riding into a group which swelled to 17 men out on the road.

In behind, Philip Deignan and Joe Dombrowski climbed with an ever-thinning lead group on a tough parcours, eventually finishing in a lead group just outside the top 10.

A flurry of attacks saw overnight race leader Tony Martin become exposed and forced the German to set a tempo on the penultimate climb to Eischoll.

Among those riders pushing clear up the road, two-time defending champion Rui Costa laid the foundations for a punishing late attack, riding to a solo stage victory and third successive overall title.

The 27-year-old Portuguese (Lampre-Merida) went into the final day 1min 5sec behind Martin (Omega Pharma - Quick-Step) but successfully overhauled his deficit as he continued his recent domination of the event.

Martin crossed the line 2min 18sec later and consequently dropped to fourth overall, with Mathias Frank (IAM Cycling) rising to second place after finishing third on the day and Bauke Mollema (Belkin) completing the final podium after finishing second.

The victory was Costa's first of the season and first since being crowned world champion last September.

After his escape efforts Knees was consumed but the German still slotted in admirably alongside Deignan and Dombrowski, even driving the chasing pack onwards towards the Saas-Fee summit.

Sports Director Dan Frost talked about the events of the final stage as the team packed up after nine days of hard racing.

"It was a really hard stage today," he confirmed. "Everyone was going full gas out there. All the GC guys were attacking each other, especially in the final and that made it super hard.

"Christian rode well to get into the break but it was a really tough group. He came back and tried to help Phil and Joe get a bit closer to the guys who had gone away. Philip was up there again and showed that he is strong and growing each race. It's good for him and morale so fingers crossed he can take that into the nationals next week."