Going into today's mountainous stage of the Tour de Suisse, John Degenkolb had hoped to make it over the many mountains but it was a bit too tough for the big German. Instead, his teammate Koen de Kort took over sprinting duties and ended the stage in seventh.

Koen De Kort took his sprint opportunity  with both hands on today’s second stage of the Tour de Suisse coming over the line fourth from the peloton behind three breakaway riders, resulting in a seventh place on the stage.

The stage featured the first major climb of the race and this was enough to shake up the peloton and get rid of several of the sprinters including John Degenkolb. Team Giant-Shimano still had five riders in the front group over the top including second placed Tom Dumoulin however without Degenkolb they would happily leave the chasing duties up to the teams of the sprinters.

On the run in the leading five riders started to split as the chase heated up behind. As the line got nearer these five became three and from these three Cameron Meyer (Orica GreenEDGE) was the fastest on the line to take the stage win. The overall lead remains with Tony Martin (Omega Pharma – Quickstep) and Tom keeps his second place just six seconds adrift.

After the stage De Kort said: “It was a pretty hard stage today but well controlled so it was OK for me on the climb. I was feeling good but the cold made it tough on the bike. I had to dig deep and suffer on the final climb when the attacks came but the team were supportive which was great. I was still there after this and the guys took me right to where I needed to be for the sprint.

“I was almost cramping in the sprint but I am pretty happy with a fourth place from the bunch – I never thought that I would be able to take a result like that in a stage like this.”

“It wasn’t the goal to be in the break on today’s tough stage,” added Team Giant-Shimano coach, Marc Reef. “After the big climb we were still in a good position with five guys in the front group but we didn’t want to commit to the chase with no major sprinter there for us.

“The team was really good today and stuck to the plan of sprinting with Koen. Koen is sprinting well now and has learned a lot off the others in the team over the past few seasons. Lawson [Craddock] did a strong lead out and Koen then dug deep to finish well.”