Yves Lampaert (Soudal-QuickStep) stormed to victory in today’s opening time trial in the Tour de Suisse, averaging a speed of over 56 km/h along the flat 4.77 km course through the streets of Vaduz, clocking the fastest time of 5:05, while Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Easy Post) finished three seconds back, followed by Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) in third.
As the weather forecast was variable, teams allocated early starting numbers to their GC favorites and the best Time Trial riders. Unfortunately, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) was unable to repeat his opening victory from last year. The time trial specialist fell short of his best form. “I already realized it during the race that my legs weren’t ideal”, explained Küng at the finish, “I was in bed all last weekend with bronchitis and couldn’t recover enough for today”.
The overall classification remains wide-open
Switzerlands Bissegger aimed to step into the breach. After a strong ride on the short course with some treacherous sections on the Vaduz Rhine dam, Bissegger narrowly missed the win and had to settle for second place on the day. However, he didn’t receive the award for the most combative rider.
As far as the overall classification is concerned, today’s time trial didn’t offer any major surprises, as last year’s overall winner Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) finished 11th only 11.16 seconds in arrears, while Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) placed strongly at 19.74 seconds behind.
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