As a wild card team, MTN-Qhubeka feel obliged to animate the racing in the Tour de Suisse and the South African team has done a lot to be in the spotlight. A few days ago Teklehaimanot showed the colours of the African team and today it was Jaco Venter who gave it a try.

The 6th stage of the Tour de Suisse came down to a sprint of the strong men as Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma Quickstep) took advantage of a great leadout by team mate, Tony Martin and won the stage with a fast finish. Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) fought hard for his 2nd place with Francesco Gavazzi (Astana) finishing 3rd.

Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung were again very visible on the stage with Jaco Venter jumping into the break of the day. Venter was accompanied by 3 very strong riders in Michael Albasini (Orica Greenedge), Jac0po Guarnieri (Astana) and Vladimir Isaychev (Katusha). The strength of the quartet was an obvious worry for the peloton as they were never allowed more than a 4 minute advantage.

With still just over 50km to race, Team Sky had a clear plan to up the pace and shed as many riders from the peloton as they could in the hope of setting the stage up for Ben Swift. The added impetus from the British squad certainly did drop a number of riders from the peloton and also ensured Venter and co. were caught with 38km to go.

Team Sky continued to pace hard over the stages final cat 2 and cat 3 climbs, reducing the peloton to just riders 60 odd riders by the end of the stage. Team MTN-Qhubeka had Linus Gerdemann, Sergio Pardilla and Louis Meintjes all finish with the leading group while Daniel Teklehaimanot held on till 5km to go as well before easing off in the technical sprint finish. After being led out so strongly by Martin, it was almost impossible for anybody to come over Trentin in the narrow finish. Gerdemann was the highest placed rider on the day in 24th position.

"We thought the breakaway might stay away today so I tried hard to get away," Venter said. "With only 4 guys though it wasn’t enough and we got brought back with around 30km to go."