De Gendt caps long break with solo win

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Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM) held off Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek) to take a deserved win on stage 7 of the Tour de Suisse. The Belgian attacked from a larger breakaway ahead of the final climb, and was never unduly troubled by Schleck's sole pursuit behind.

The overall standings remained more or less unchanged, as Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD) retained the yellow jersey after resisting the pressure of Rabobank duo Steven Kruijswijk and Bauke Mollema in the finale.

De Gendt and Schleck were part of a 17-man break that formed on the day's first categorised climb of the Flüelapass and dominated the proceedings thereafter. 25km from the line, they had a lead of 6:45 over the peloton, and it was here that De Gendt sensed his opportunity.

Shortly after his teammate Marco Marcato's attack had been reeled in, De Gendt shot off the front and immediately opened a sizeable gap behind. With Marcato and Sergey Lagutin marshalling the break and nobody willing to tow Andy Schleck back into contention, De Gendt hit the foot of the final climb of the Fisser-Hofe with a minute in hand over the chasers.

Once the road began to climb, Schleck came to the front and attempted to jump across, but his first acceleration succeeded only in stretching out the group, with Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Cervélo), Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma) and George Hincapie (BMC) all able to match his pace.

To his credit, in spite of the lack of incision in his first effort, Schleck stuck resolutely to his task and he managed to grind his way clear of the rest of the break and set off in lone pursuit of De Gendt. Although somewhat ragged in style by his own standards, Schleck initially began to make some inroads into De Gendt's lead, and sliced it to 45 seconds with 7km to go.

However, De Gendt was continuing to tap out a steady tempo of his own up ahead, his shoulders rocking rhythmically as he did so. Though by no means a pure climber, De Gendt pedalled with a certain degree of fluidity of the climb, and once he had weathered the ferocity of Schleck’s initial onslaught, the victory was never in doubt.

At the summit of the climb with 3.5km to go, De Gendt still had 38 seconds in hand on Schleck, and he conceded little more time on the final ripples to the finish line to take this third win of the season.

Schleck came home 30 seconds later, well aware that there he still has considerable margin for improvement ahead of the Tour de France's first mountain stages, in a little over three weeks' time.

Cunego holds firm

While Schleck was pursuing De Gendt up the mountainside, the race for the yellow jersey also exploded into life on the final climb. Rabobank had done the lion's share of the pace-making throughout the stage, as Mollema and Kruijswijk sensed an opportunity to endanger Damiano Cunego’s overall lead.

The first attack on the climb came from Tom Danielson (Garmin-Cervélo), however, and the American impressed as he danced clear of the favourites for overall victory with Wout Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM) for company.

When Rabobank, and Laurens Ten Dam in particular, reeled Danielson back in, Cunego put in a tentative dig of his own, as if to deter the Dutch squad from attempting to put him under pressure. Giampaolo Caruso (Katusha) was also prominent at this point, but approaching the final section of the climb, nobody had succeeded in breaking the deadlock.

Mathias Frank (BMC) altered that when he launched a searing acceleration 5km from the finish that only Danielson and Kruijswijk could follow. As the trio began to pick off the remnants of the early break, it looked as though theirs would be a decisive move, but the hitherto anonymous Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) took matters in hand to shut down their move with an impressive show of force a little over a kilometre later.

As the road flattened out, Leopard Trek went on the offensive, with first Fränk Schleck and then Jakob Fulgsang going on the offensive, but their efforts did little to upset the composition of the yellow jersey group, and Cunego led the favourites' group home 4:39 down on De Gendt.

The early break

Just shy of 223km and with three categorised climbs, stage 7 threatened to be decisive for the overall standings, as the bunch travelled from Vaduz in Liechtenstein into Austria. 33km in, the day's first break formed, with Linus Gerdemann and Andy Schleck (Leopard) prominent. However, with Branislau Samoilau (Movistar) lying 7:51 down in 16th place, Lampre-ISD were reluctant to led them go in and they set about shutting down the dangerous-looking break.

Although they opened a lead of over two minutes at one point, the hyperactive peloton was loathe to let them go. Even after Samoilau dropped back, they were caught on the slopes of the Flüelapass. Shortly afterwards, however, another group managed to forge clear, made up of Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank), Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma), George Hincapie (BMC), Christian Vandevelde (Garmin), Alberto Losada and Luca Paolini (Katusha), José Ivan Gutierrez, Angel Madrazo and Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Enrico Gasparotto (Astana), Javier Aramendia (Euskaltel), Dries Devenyns (Quick Step), Thomas De Gendt, Sergey Lagutin and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) and Andreas Dietziker (NetApp).

Andy Schleck was clearly determined to make an impact on Friday's stage, and he set off in lone pursuit to swell the group to 17. He led the group over the Flüelapass and also took the mountains points atop the Norbertshöhe as the break’s lead went north of the seven-minute mark.

Behind, RadioShack had begun to lend Rabobank a hand and the gap slowly began to tumble, although the peloton never seriously threatened to catch De Gendt, Schleck et al before the finish. Lampre-ISD enjoyed a relatively trouble-free day in the defence of Cunego’s jersey, thanks to the efforts of Rabobank and RadioShack in controlling the race in the final 80km.

However, with the concluding 32km time trial still to come on Sunday afternoon, Lampre knows that it must try and find a way to put more time between Cunego and the time triallists on tomorrow's final road stage to Schaffhausen.

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