Tour de Suisse: Matthews wins stage 4

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Orica-GreenEdge seized control of the Tour de Suisse on stage 4 to Schwarzenbach, delivering Michael Matthews to a commanding sprint victory on a lumpy 193km stage. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) was second, but missed out on taking over the race lead from Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) by a single second. Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) was third on the stage, while Daniel Moreno (Katusha) missed out in the battle for the bonus seconds and dropped to third overall.

"It was always going to be difficult. the way he sprinted yesterday was really strong," Matthews said of Sagan. "I knew I had to just glue myself to his wheel and see what I had to come over him."

With three opportunities to take time bonuses in the stage, the day's breakaway was never given much leeway. Thomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Davide Malacarne (Astana), Alex Howes (Cannondale-Garmin), Stijn Devolder (Trek Factory Racing) and Frederik Backjaert (Wanty Groupe Gobert) escaped early in the stage and crested the category 2 Wildhaus climb with 2:50 on the field, but on the long descent to the finish circuits, their advantage evaporated.

On the first pass through the finish line, the five had only 39 seconds, and although first Howes and then De Gendt tried to stay clear, the Orica-led peloton swept past them on the penultimate trip up the Husenstrasse.

The vicious pace of the team succeeded in dropping Matthews' sprint rivals Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff out the back and also discouraged any counterattacks for most of the lap.

In a cagey bid in the battle for the overall classification, Dumoulin made a well-timed attack to claim three bonus seconds in the sprint with 37km to go, catching Sagan and Moreno off guard. The move extended his lead in the GC to eight seconds over the pair, but Sagan would not be fooled twice.

With 16km to go, Astana's Alexey Lutsenko attacked, countering a move by IAM's Jonathan Fumeaux. He stayed clear long enough to take the maximum time bonus in Sirnach with 9km to go, but a surge from Sagan netted him second in the sprint over Dumoulin, bringing the gap down to seven seconds in GC.

Lutsenko was brought back with 6.5km to go and was quickly countered by Marco Marcato (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). Behind, Sergio Henao (Sky) and Jan Bakelants (AG2R) attacked, joining Marcato in a doomed escape.

Orica-GreenEdge kept a steady hand on the throttle and swept past the trio with 2km to go, while Sagan jostled with Trek's Jasper Stuyven for Matthews' wheel ahead of the sprint. Sagan opened up the dash to the line but Matthews latched on and then opened the jets to blast past him and claim the stage victory.

Sagan's six second bonus was not enough to overtake Dumoulin in the overall classification. He trails by one second, but is unlikely to gain the yellow jersey on Wednesday's 237km stage 5 which ends on the hors categorie Rettenbachferner climb.

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