photo credits @ WTFK
Adam Yates and João Almeida did the three-peat on stage 7 of the Tour de Suisse, as the UAE Team Emirates duo once again reaffirmed their status as the two strongest riders in the race, dropping the rest of the GC contenders in the closing kilometers of the final climb.
The pair crossed the line together, with Yates taking the stage win and the bonus seconds to extend his lead in the general classification over Almeida. With nearly two minutes now back to Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) in third place in the standings, it is clear that these two will finish first and second overall, but with an uphill time trial still to come on the final stage, it is unclear in what order they will finish the race in.
Race Highlights
With Col de la Croix coming just a few kilometers into the stage, the climb provided the perfect launchpad for early attacks, with an eight-man group containing Maxim Van Gils and Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny), Harold Martín López (Astana Qazaqstan), Finlay Pickering (Bahrain Victorious), Valentin Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Einer Rubio (Movistar), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates) forming at the head of the race.
On the lower slopes of the ascent to Villars-sur-Ollon, the gap to the breakaway sat at just over a minute and a half, but as the peloton hit the climb Ineos Grenadiers came to the fore in the main group and began to control the gap to those at the front
The peloton had gradually begun to close the gap to the rest of the breakaway as they began the second ascent of the Col de la Croix and the group started to fracture with some of them attacking in an attempt to stay clear.
López and Moniquet were the first to be caught by the peloton and it was not long before the rest of the breakaway had been caught, leaving Staune-Mittet as the sole leader at the head of the race.
Onto the final climb to the finish, Staune-Mittet held on for as long as he could to take the Tissot KM sprint before being caught by Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), who had launched an attack from the peloton in search of the stage win.
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) then made the first move from the GC contenders in the peloton, with Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech), Wilco Kelderman (Visma-Lease a Bike) and the overall leader Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) on his wheel.
Kelderman and Riccitello were then dropped as they caught and passed Gall, leaving the UAE Team Emirates duo of Almeida and Yates alone at the head of the race
Yates led the way into the final kilometre with Almeida glued to his wheel, while further back, Riccitello and Kelderman led the chase.
In the end, there was no sprint as Yates and Almeida came to the finish together, the yellow jersey crossing the line just ahead of his teammate and adding four seconds to his lead ahead of the decisive 15.7km time trial on tomorrow.
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