Superb stage win for Gesink

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The mountainous sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse turned into a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France, with all the race favourites testing their legs on the Albulapass, crested with 10km to go. Robert Gesink (Rabobank) proved to be the strongest, attacking from the group of favourites to catch and pass the remnants of an earlier breakaway and solo to his first win of the 2010 season.

With his stage victory, Gesink dons the yellow leader's jersey. The morning's leader, Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) was dropped early on the climb and lost two minutes, falling out of the top 10 in the general classification.

Rabobank director sportif Adri van Houwelingen was impressed with Gesink's performance, watching him put time into the chasing group led by no other than Lance Armstrong and his Radioshack team.

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"It says something about Robert's victory when you see that Radioshack is blowing up the chase. Including the best riders in the team like Klöden and Leipheimer."

"I heard Dutch journalists say today that this is the most beautiful victory by a Dutch rider in recent years. I can do with that. His performance on the Albulapass was nothing less than impressive. We had suggested that Robert test himself today, and this test is very, very good."

It was one of the biggest career moments for the tall, slender Dutch rider, who has become better known for crashing out of Grand Tours than for victories. The 24-year-old has now shown he has the form to justifiy being a co-captain for his Dutch ProTour team in the upcoming Tour de France.

Another rider who showed that he is coming into Tour form is Lance Armstrong. The 38-year-old rode in the leading group up the final climb, and outdid both of his younger teammates Klöden and Leipheimer. His fifth place finish on the day was enough to propel him from 21st place to seventh.

Armstrong was the only Radioshack rider to survived the attacks near the top of the Albulapass, with teammates Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden both left behind. Also present was Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank), whose brother Andy had been part of the attack with Gesink but faded from the leading groups to finish in a second group behind Gesink.

The chasing group was led home by Rigoberto Uran (Caisse d'Epargne), who fell 29 seconds shy of claiming the race lead. He was the best placed rider of the group behind Gesink, with Steve Morabito (BMC) moving into third overall at 36 seconds.

A day of climbing

The weather was touch and go for the lengthy and mountainous 213km journey from Meiringen to La Punt, but would end in brilliant sunshine by the day's end. The only non-starter of the day was Mark Cavendish who, after causing a crash in the finale of the fourth stage and suffering both injuries and a rider protest yesterday, left the race.

A 13-rider group got away early: Edouard Vorganov (Katusha), Alessandro Vanotti (Liquigas), Philip Deignan (Cervélo), Pablo Lastras Garcia (Caisse d'Epargne), Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre), Juan Manuel Garate (Rabobank), Juan José Oroz, Amets Txurruka (both Euskaltel), Brice Feillu, Marco Marcato, Wouter Poels (all Vacansoleil), Jérémy Roy (FdJ) and Mathias Frank (BMC).

The stage took them directly up the category one climb Sustenpass, followed immediately by the category one Oberalppass. The weather played games with them, with fog hindering their visibility on the first climb and rain starting to come down near the mid-way point of the day.

The breakaway led by six and a half minutes, with HTC-Columbia leading the chase for overall leader Tony Martin, but the gap didn't drop significantly until Saxo Bank moved in to share the work.

The lead group split going up the final climb, with about 43km to go, as Garate, Lastras, Vanotti, Marcato and Frank took off, soon to be joined by Feillu.

The escape group had an unusual advantage with 39km to go, of which it was unable to take advantage. The chasing field was caught at a closed railroad crossing, stopping and waiting for about a minute.

Up ahead, the climb started to bite and Feillu and Roy dropped the rest of their companions, but soon Roy could not follow the pace of his compatriot and went back to a chasing group..

With 25km to go, the chasing peloton began to shatter as well. Saxo Bank's Fabian Cancellara was one of the first to fall off the back, but at the other end, his teammate Andy Schleck attacked, followed by Gesink.

Up ahead, Feillu's succumbed to the length of the climb and was caught by Txurruka and Garate as the attacks from the favourites group behind brought the gap down to mere seconds.

Gesink and Schleck made it to the leading group just as Feillu was losing contact, but with the group 20 seconds behind, the Rabobank man did not wait long to make his move.

Gesink flew the coop, leaving Schleck to be caught by a high-powered group containing RadioShack's Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer. Meanwhile, Martin had long ago fallen back and was saying goodbye to his yellow jersey.

Gesink was first over the Albulapass with a 1:10 gap over the Armstrong/Schleck group. He was able to pull through to the end, taking the win and the overall lead.

The chasing group split near the top of the climb, with Leipheimer losing contact along with Andy Schleck. The top contenders for the yellow jersey: Uran, Morabito and Fränk Schleck were unable to claw back enough time on the flying Dutchman to keep him from taking the race lead.

The 42 seconds Gesink held at the line were enough to give him a healthy 29 second lead over Uran, with Morabito 7 seconds further behind in the standings.

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