Tight teamwork nets Bozic a stage win

Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil-DCM) prevailed in a chaotic, challenging uphill sprint to win stage five of the Tour de Suisse. The 30-year-old Slovenian edged Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and points leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) in a hard-fought finale to claim his first win of the season.

While conventional wisdom dictated a day for the sprinters, the Tour de Suisse organisation threw a monkey wrench into the works for the second straight stage with another taxing, uphill grind to the line which tested the mettle of the sprinters as well as their respective lead-out trains.

The Dutch ProTour squad Vacancoleil-DCM unleashed a lethal one-two punch inside the final kilometre as Bozic's teammate Marco Marcato surged with 500m remaining, disrupting the lead-out efforts of HTC-Highroad and Team Sky. The sprinters' teams hesitated for a moment, providing the Italian with a bit of breathing room, and creating further disorder as the peloton spread wide across the road. At 200m to go, however, the kick to the line began in earnest with Marcato being swept up metres from the finish by a mixture of sprinters and strong men.

The general classification leadership remained unchanged as Damiano Cunego maintained his 54-second lead over Mauricio Soler (Movistar) and 1:16 margin on third-placed Bauke Mollema (Rabobank). Gaps opened in the final push to the finish line, but the top GC contenders all finished in the first group of 46 and ceded no time.

Soon after the 204.2km stage from Huttwil to Tobel-Tägerschen commenced, four riders went out on the attack in the early break. The intrepid quartet was comprised of Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank Sungard), Alessandro Bazzana (Team Type 1-Sanofi Aventis), Jan Barta (NetApp) and Daniel Sesma (Euskatel-Euskadi).

With Sesma the highest placed on general classification among the escapees at more than 22 minutes down on Cunego, the break was given plenty of breathing room which they parlayed into a near 10-minute lead after 30km of racing.

Liquigas-Cannondale, Team Sky and Omega Pharma-Lotto, all keen on seeing a bunch finish, then took the reins in the peloton and knocked out a steady tempo to gradually reduce the break's advantage.

The cat-and-mouse tactics continued through to the 39km finishing circuit, where the peloton was given a preview of the finish and crossed the line for the first time approximately two minutes in arrears of the leading quartet.

As the break's lead continued to tumble, the harmony in the escape disappeared as riders began to attack each other. Barta would prove the most resilient as he continued alone in the lead, but with the pace ramping up in the peloton his fate was inevitable and the capture occurred with 14km remaining.

For the remainder of the stage the fight was on to wrest control of the peloton with HTC-Highroad, Team Sky, Omega Pharma-Lotto, Euskaltel-Euskadi and Quick Step all having stints on the front.

As the peloton made a sharp turn onto the finishing straight it was Quick Step's Tom Boonen who went long on the rise to the finish, but the Belgian was caught with Sagan, Matt Goss (HTC-Highroad) and yesterday's winner Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervelo) positioned to strike.

As HTC-Highroad and Team Sky led into the final kilometre it would be Vacansoleil-DCM, however, who stamped their authority on the day's outcome, first launching Marcato, then finishing off in fine fashion with Bozic.

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