Oscar Onley won stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse, piping João Almeida on the line at the end of today’s Queen stage to claim his second WorldTour victory.
The British Picnic PostNL rider surged off the front of the group of favorites with just over 3km to go, who was later joined by UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Almeida. But, the Portuguese rider could not shake his rival, which came down to a sprint in the closing meters with Onley seizing the stage honors.
Meanwhile, Roman Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) gave up the race lead to his compatriot, Kévin Vaquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), as the Frenchman defended well enough from Almeida to take over the yellow jersey, with just 39 seconds now separating the pair.
Earlier, Grégoire was distanced on the final two ascents of the Castaneda climb, while Vaquelin hung in with the group of favorites to challenge overall. Onley followed an attack by Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling) with 4.2km to go, later dropping the Frenchman.
Race Highlights
A flurry of attacks at the outset of the stage, saw Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), Ben Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) and Javier Romo (Movistar) among the early escapees.
From there, the group swelled to 12, but the challenge of the Julierpass reduced the group to just 5, with Romo, Bilbao, Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) surviving.
Vlasov was the first over the top of the climb, while the group’s gap approached four minutes at times.
The second climb of the day was the San Bernardino Pass, which was crested once again by Vlasov, putting him in the virtual lead of the mountains classification.
On the next climb, the Castaneda, the leader’s gap began to dwindle, with Romo and Fortunato both getting dropped with 25km to go.
As the group approached the top of Castaneda for the first time, the gap had fallen to just 25 seconds, as Powless was the next to fall, while Bilbao and Vlasov left alone out front.
At the same time, Grégoire was dropped, slipping a minute and a half by the time the leaders reached the top of second pass of the Castaneda.
In the valley between the two final ascents of Castaneda, the group of favorites swelled to 19 riders, with Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla) and Lennard Kämna (Lidl-Trek) among those to rejoin.
With 8.4km to go, the group of favorites became the leading group, with Grégoire now over a minute behind.
With 5.6km to go, O’Connor once again was dropped on the climb of Castaneda, along with Clément Champoussin (XDS Astana).
Alaphilippe attacked with 4km to go, who was quickly joined by Onley, followed by Gall, Vaquelin, Ricitello and Almeida.
Shortly thereafter, Onley continued on alone, while Almeida stalked his move.
With 2.5km to go, Onley led over the top of the climb, who was followed by Almeida and then Gall.
Heading into the final kilometer, Onley was joined by Almeida, while Gall remained 16 seconds behind, and Vaquelin a further 30 seconds back.
Onley opened up his sprint first, and despite a valiant effort from Almeida, the British rider proved to be the stronger of the two.
