Already yesterday Team Sky had announced that today was a big day for Ben Swift at the Tour de Suisse and the team completely dominated the finale, setting a brutal pace on the penultimate climb. In the end, however, Swift got boxed in and had to settle for fourth.

Ben Swift narrowly missed out on a top-three finish after great work from Team Sky set him up for the sprint on stage six of the Tour de Suisse.

Swift managed to make it over the final two climbs of the day after benefitting from some great team-work from Peter Kennaugh, Sergio Henao, Philip Deignan and Christian Knees on the testing finishing loop around Delémont.

However, the British rider got boxed in as he opened up his sprint for the line and couldn’t get around Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step), who took the win, while Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) edged out Francesco Gavazzi (Astana) for third.

Swift had initially been dropped on the final climb of the day after a stinging attack from Peter Sagan strung out the peloton, and the Cannondale rider continued to move clear of the dwindling bunch on the descent with some impressive bike handling.

An equally-impressive chase from Kennaugh saw Sagan brought back as the peloton approached the flamme rouge, with Swift guided safely back in the bunch.

Henao then did brilliantly to ensure that Swift was in prime position inside the last kilometre, but as Trentin launched his sprint, the Yorkshireman was left with nowhere to go as the Omega Pharma – Quick-Step rider sprinted to victory.

The result had no bearing on the overall standings, meaning Kennaugh and Henao held onto their respective 11th and 15th places on the general classification. The duo remain less than 37 seconds behind race leader Tony Martin (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step), who still holds his six-second lead over Tom Dunmoulin (Giant-Shimano) ahead of the stage seven time trial.

Back in the team car, Sports Director Dan Frost was full of praise for what he had seen and feels the team are well placed to challenge in the final three days of action.

"It was a really good team effort today and they followed the plan to the letter. We wanted to make it hard on the last two climbs and the guys looked strong. Phil deserves special praise because he’s been a little bit under the weather in the past few days, but really stepped up here, and the other guys kept on coming back to support Ben.

"It was unfortunate Ben got boxed in in the sprint. It was a narrow finish and he just couldn’t find a way through. If the gap had been a centimetre more, we might have seen a different result, but that’s the way it was.

"To see Sergio up there at the end was amazing. He’s in really good form right now and we’re looking forward to seeing what he can do over the next three days. The time trial should suit him, and then the mountain stages are where we really expect him to prosper."