Matteo Trentin held off Daniele Bennati in a final sprint to narrowly win the sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse today, as Omega Pharma-QuickStep teammate Tony Martin retained his overall lead.
Trentin, who was led out perfectly by Martin in the final kilometer, attacked with 200 meters to go, and edged out Bennati by half a wheel.
Francesco Gavazzi finished third in today’s 193-kilometer stage from Buren an der Aare to Delemont, beating Ben Swift to make it an all-Italian podium.
Martin retained his six-second advantage over Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin.
Meanwhile, Peter Sagan finished 10 seconds behind Swift, heading into tomorrow’s individual time trial.
Race Highlights
After four stages for the sprinters, today’s race returned to the mountains with four categorized climbs.
Vladimir Isaichev, Michael Albasini, Jacopo Guarnieri and Jacobus Venter broke free early on, and had an advantage of 4:34 heading into the first climb of the day, the category 1 climb of the Grand Chaumont.
That lead dropped to less than three minutes at the summit, but the quartet succeeded in pushing their advantage back out again on the descent.
However, they were caught with 37 kilometers remaining by the peloton which was being driven by Team Sky.
Sagan attacked on the final climb and managed to open up a gap, followed by a powerful descent.
With victory in sight, Sagan continued to lead with Marcus Burghardt during the remaining three kilometers.
However, Sky brought the field back together, and Martin took over the front, leading the race into the final kilometer and causing a split in the peloton to deliver his teammate to victory.
Stage 6 Results ITA 1 TRENTIN, Matteo (OMEGA PHARMA – QUICK-STEP) 4:43:19 ITA 2 BENNATI, Daniele (TINKOFF-SAXO) ITA 3 GAVAZZI, Francesco (ASTANA) GBR 4 SWIFT, Ben (SKY) SVK 5 SAGAN, Peter (CANNONDALE) ITA 6 MODOLO, Sacha (LAMPRE – MERIDA) ESP 7 ROJAS GIL, Jose Joaquin (MOVISTAR) SUI 8 DILLIER, Silvan (BMC RACING) COL 9 HENAO MONTOYA, Sergio Luis (SKY) BEL 10 VAN DER SANDE, Tosh (LOTTO BELISOL)
General Classification after Stage 6 GER 1 MARTIN, Tony (OMEGA PHARMA – QUICK-STEP) 23:11:06 NED 2 DUMOULIN, Tom (GIANT-SHIMANO) + 6 SVK 3 SAGAN, Peter (CANNONDALE) + 10 NED 4 MOLLEMA, Bauke (BELKIN) + 17 NED 5 SLAGTER, Tom Jelte (GARMIN SHARP) + 23 ITA 6 FORMOLO, Davide (CANNONDALE) + 27 ESP 7 IZAGUIRRE INSAUSTI, Jon (MOVISTAR) CZE 8 KREUZIGER, Roman (TINKOFF-SAXO) + 28 SUI 9 FRANK, Mathias (IAM CYCLING) + 29 ITA 10 CATTANEO, Mattia (LAMPRE – MERIDA)
You must be logged in to post a comment.
