Meyer wins breakaway sprint in Sarnen

Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) claimed victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse after he out-sprinted his breakaway companions Philip Deignan (Team Sky) and Lawrence Warbasse (BMC) in Sarnen.

The trio were the three remaining survivors of a six-man break that had gone clear after 15 kilometres and stretched out their advantage to four minutes over the climbs of the Gotthardpass, Furkaspass and Grimselpass, which were tackled in wet and cold conditions midway through the stage.

The group had still had three minutes in hand when they reached the foot of the day’s final obstacle, the Brünigpass, with 30 kilometres remaining. When Warbasse accelerated, he was immediately tracked by Deignan, who had appeared the strongest climber in the break.

Meyer, however, was not to be denied, and the Australian scrambled his way back up to the two leaders on the descent. Behind, a series of attacks that included an effort from Laurens ten Dam (Belkin) saw the pace rise in the main peloton, and the three leaders had just over a minute in hand entering the final kilometre.

By that point, the Cannondale squad had taken up the reins of the pursuit in support of Peter Sagan, and their concerted effort helped to make significant inroads into the break’s lead. The trio collaborated well together, however, and they managed to maintain a 14-second lead on the bunch come the finish.

Warbasse opened the three-up sprint, but he couldn't match the kick of Meyer, who took the stage honours ahead of the generous Deignan. Behind, Sagan duly claimed the sprint for fourth ahead of Ben Swift (Sky) and Silvan Dillier (BMC).

"This is a significant win for me," said Meyer. "The Giro was a big personal goal for the first half of the season. It was great to win the team time trial with the guys, but things went downhill for me personally from there. I got sick. I crashed. Eventually, I pulled out. I really wanted to bounce back and come back strong in the second part of the season. This is a great way to start that."

Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) retains his overall lead, 6 seconds ahead of Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano) and 13 clear of Rohan Dennis, whose Garmin-Sharp team had done much of the early work in pegging back the break’s advantage.

Kreuziger, Pinot and Ten Dam to the fore

The escapees slipped clear after just 15 kilometres of racing, with Deignan, Meyer and Warbasse joined by Reto Hollenstein (IAM Cycling), Frederik Veuchelen (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Bjorn Thurau (Europcar), and they stretched their lead out to a maximum of 5:20 on the slopes of the Furkapass.

Veuchelen was shed from the group on the climb of the Grimselpass, and Garmin-Sharp’s chasing on the descent helped to snip the break’s lead back to three minutes. However, Deignan, who was so impressive in the final week of the Giro d’Italia, was still the virtual overall leader on the way up the final climb, the Brünigpass

While Deignan and Warbasse were working their way steadily clear of the rest of the break, there was a series of fiercer accelerations in the main peloton behind, with Ten Dam, Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) all making speculative efforts. Pinot’s effort, in particular, strung out the bunch, but none of the principal overall contenders succeeded in breaking the deadlock and Cannondale took over the chase over the other side of the Brünigpass.

As the men in lime green shaved seconds off the break’s lead, it briefly seemed as though Sagan would fight his way back into contention, but instead it was the lone figure of Cameron Meyer who made the dramatic fight back, and then delivered the sprint to claim a fine win.

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