Mollema wins at Crans-Montana

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Bauke Mollema (Blanco) claimed victory on stage two of the Tour of Switzerland with a well-timed attack inside the final kilometre of the climb to the summit finish at Crans-Montana, while Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) rode well to limit his losses in the finale and retain the overall lead for another day.

The final ascent to Crans-Montana was animated by an attack from Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) and until Mollema ripped clear of the yellow jersey group underneath the red kite, it looked as though as the Canadian was going to be rewarded for his daring with stage victory and the yellow jersey.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner Daniel Martin laid the groundwork for Hesjedal’s move, dancing clear of the peloton on with 12km of the climb still to go after earlier escapees Christophe Riblon (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Enrique Sanz (Movistar), Adrian Saez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Johannes Frohlinger (Argos-Shimano) had been swept up ahead of the climb. Less than two kilometres later, Hesjedal punched his way across the gap with Giro d’Italia revelation Tanel Kangert (Astana) on his wheel.

While Martin dropped back to the yellow jersey group, Hesjedal persisted in his pressing, opening out a lead of 30 seconds with 6km to go and forcing his way clear of Kangert shortly afterwards. At that point, Hesjedal was remarkably grinding away in the big ring and the chase behind was making precious little inroads into his advantage, in spite of the best efforts of Blanco’s Lars Petter Nordhaug, which saw a number of riders, including Andy Schleck (RadioShack Leopard) dropped from the main peloton.

The situation changed within the final three kilometres, however, as a flurry of accelerations began to shave precious seconds off Hesjedal’s gap. Simon Spilak (Katusha), Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r-La Mondiale) and Tejay van Garderen (BMC) all put in digs, but their moves were all expertly policed by Dan Martin.

Even so, Hesjedal was understandably beginning to flag up front and his gap was just 15 seconds approaching the final kilometre. With 900 metres to go, Mollema sensed his opportunity and his vicious acceleration brought him across to Hesjedal’s wheel. Rather than sit on and catch his breath, Mollema opted to kick immediately, pressing clear with 500 metres to go to take the stage win, his first since the 2010 Tour of Poland.

“It’s the biggest win of my career and it’s been a long time coming since the last race I won was almost three years ago,” said Mollema. “I opened a good gap on the riders behind me and when I came up to Ryder I knew he was tired from riding alone for most of the climb.”

Mathias Frank (BMC) beat Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and Hesjedal in the sprint for second place 11 seconds later, while the yellow jersey group fragmented under the impetus of the attacking in the final kilometres, with Tejay van Garderen (25th at 40 seconds) losing ground to many of his rivals for final overall victory.

The yellow jersey Cameron Meyer had been well-supported by Michael Albasini in the earlier part of the climb and he defended himself as best he could in the face of the accelerations in the finale. The Australian crossed the line 24 seconds down in 13th place, which was enough to retain the overall lead, 3 seconds ahead of Hesjedal and 5 ahead of Frank.

A number of dangermen are lined up with a minute of Meyer’s lead, including Giovanni Visconti (4th at 12 seconds), Thibaut Pinot (5th at 16), Roman Kreuziger (6th at 28), defending champion Rui Costa (11th at 40 seconds) and Dan Martin (12th at 42 seconds).

The stage winner Mollema, backed by a strong Blanco squad and building towards a Tour de France where he has genuine aspirations of a high finish in Paris, is also very much in the hunt. “I hope to finish on the podium here, because there are still some mountain stages and an uphill time trial to come, so that might suit me,” he said.

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