Sagan wins stage 6 in Bischofszell

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Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) continued his dominance in the Tour de Suisse, coming from behind to win the sprint of the sixth stage in Bischofszell. In the last few meters he caught and passed Ben Swift (Sky) who finished second, with Allan Davis of Orica-GreenEdge finishing third.

It was Sagan's fourth win in the race, and his 12th on the season.

“The finishes in the Tour de Suisse are never straight so you need to invent something to find some space,” said Sagan. “I had to work harder today firstly to get a leading position in the finale, and secondly to launch the sprint. I went flat out into the last corner so I wouldn’t get boxed in and even brushed the barriers. I was blocked in that moment but as soon as Swift kicked, I knew I could come around and I did.”

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Rui Costa (Movistar) remained in the leader's jersey and maintained his eight second lead over Frank Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan) and 15 second advantage on Roman Kreuziger (Astana).

It was another day with five ranked climbs, but all category three and four. Four of them came within the final 50km. In quite a change of weather, there was for once no rain on the day.

There were numerous attempts to break away, with Orica-GreenEdge's Michael Albasini being particularly active. But with 30km down a group formed which received the peloton's blessing, and Baden Cooke (Orica-GreenEdge), Vicente Reynes (Lotto Belisol), Matteo Montaguti (AG2R La Mondiale), Troels Ronning Vinther (Saxo Bank) and Rubens Bertogliati (Team Type 1-Sanofi) took off.

Unfortunately, Bertogliati was only 1:45 down on GC and quickly assumed the “virtual” race lead. Realizing that his presence would only doom the group, he soon dropped back and the remaining quartet went on their merry way.

Nevertheless, the gap grew only slowly, hitting a maximum of five minutes at about the halfway mark. The stage ended with two laps of a 29km circuit course and the four leaders set off on the first lap with 3:24 lead.

Liquigas-Cannondale had led the way in the early part of the race, but Movistar, around race leader Costa, and Lampre-ISD, with sprinter Alessandro Petacchi, had by now taken over. The gap crept up, though, again hitting four minutes with 40km to go.

That was enough for the field to finally take action and the gap dropped to under three minutes by the 25km marker, and it kept on going down from there.

A number of teams shared the lead work in the final kilometers with everyone wanting to get their good-climbing sprinters into position but the category four Schocherswil at 6km to go proved to be no real barrier. With 5km left Cooke and Reynes were back in the pack as Montaguti and Vinther kept on fighting.

They had no chance against the determined field, however, and were also caught at the 2km banner. Sky led the way into the sprint and Swift jumped for the win around the final corner. But Sagan came up on his right side and passed him in the final few meters to take yet another win.