Kirchen times move to perfection

Kim Kirchen attacked out of the peloton at the last minute, catching Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) with only 175 metres to go, and went on to give Team Columbia-Highroad its fifth win in seven stages at the Tour de Suisse. Kreuziger took second, with third going six seconds later to Peter Velits of Team Milram.

"I'm not here to train for results, I'm here for results," Kirchen said. "It's also a great boost to my morale after what happened to me earlier in the season. Kreuziger attacked with three kilometres to go, but I waited to see what would happen and then went for it with less than a kilometre to the finish. My form's in really good shape now, in time for the Tour de France."

Team Columbia-Highroad directeur sportif Rolf Aldag is optimistic about Kirchen's Tour de France opportunities. "In Kim's case, he had a difficult spring, but he's shown here he's definitely coming up for July. Not being so strong in the Ardennes Classics could be an advantage in the Tour, too where he's sometimes suffered in the third week. This time round, by coming into form a bit later, he should be able to have a better second half of the race. And with that powerful sprint of his on mountain-top finishes, there are definitely some stages where we expect him to shine."

Tadej Valjavec (AG2R La Mondiale) remains in the overall lead nine seconds in front of Fabian Cancellara (Team Saxo Bank) and 14 seconds ahead of Olivier Zaugg (Liquigas).

The race was dominated by a four-man escape group for much of the stage, but the peloton caught them on the final climb. From there, Astana and Team Saxo Bank worked hard to keep the field together, but things didn't work in their favour. Many attacked but none were allowed to get away.

The first mountain classification points came at km 196.4, with the peloton going over it together. Immediately thereafter was an intermediate sprint, followed by yet another classified climb at km 202.7.

Right after that, with 3 kilometres to go, Kreuziger attacked, followed by earlier stage five winner Michael Albasini of Team Columbia-Highroad. Kreuziger was able to shake off the Swiss rider and with a lead of 17 seconds, looked like the winner.

Team Columbia-Highroad wasn't about to give up its dreams of yet another stage win, however. Maxime Monfort was the next to go, and when he was caught, Kirchen took off. Kirchen caught and passed last year's overall winner to take the stage win.

One hundred and fifty two riders were at the start this morning. Missing were Thomas Voeckler (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) and Koldo Fernandez of Euskaltel-Euskadi. Greg Van Avermaet (Silence-Lotto) and Juan Jose Oroz (Euskaltel-Euskadi) were the first to try their luck, about 20 kilometres into the stage, but were quickly caught. Pavel Brutt (Team Katusha) and Jean Eudes Demaret of Cofidis were the next to go, and were equally unsuccessful.

A bit later, the trio of Jose Joaquin Rojas (Caisse d'Epargne), Marcus Burghardt (Team Columbia-Highroad) and Gerald Ciolek of Team Milram got away. Damien Gaudin of Bbox Bouygues Telecom went in pursuit and after a long struggle caught up with them. They were able to build up a lead of over six minutes by km 130.

That was about as far as the peloton was willing to let them go, seeing too much danger from the escapees. The field turned up the speed, and cut the lead by a minute within only a few kilometres.

The rain came down and the lead came down as well. The quartet fought hard to maintain their advantage, but the other teams were determined to have a stage win - not that it did them any good.