Saturday’s prologue (1st stage) in the Tour de Suisse opened up the last WorldTour race before July’s Tour de France. The 5,1 km time trial in Risch-Rotkreuz was fast all the way and saw Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) take the stage win and first leader’s jersey with a top time of 5.41. For Team Katusha, it was a day to test the legs and prepare for the upcoming stages. 

"We did not expect too much from today because a short TT is not our preferred type of race. The main thing was to see the condition of our GC guys Simon Špilak and Daniel Moreno. I think both showed good form and motivation. Simon was strong today, he showed a good time, but he did a corner wrong at one point and lost some seconds - somebody on the road confused him so we went in the wrong direction. Both Simon and Daniel showed good legs as well as Alexander Kristoff, who is ok too. Let's see what happens in the next days," said team director Torsten Schmidt.

Rounding out the stage and GC podium with Dumoulin were Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) at 2-seconds back and Matthias Brandle (IAM Cycling) at 4-seconds behind for third place. Alexander Kristoff became the best placed Katusha’s rider with 43rd position and +0.16.

Tomorrow’s stage 2 brings the first road stage. The course features two big circuits around the lake region of Risch-Rotkreuz with climbs along the way at 161,1 km.