Tour de Suisse: Bernal victorious on San Gottardo

Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) extended his lead in the Tour de Suisse with a commanding victory on stage 7. The Colombian dropped all of his GC rivals on the final climb of the Passo San Gottardo with just under two kilometres remaining and soloed to another impressive win in the young 22-year-old’s career.

There was little resistance when Bernal decided to stretch his legs on the cobbled sector of the long 12.4km climb with only Bahrain-Merida’s Domenico Pozzovivo and Rohan Dennis mounting a late but eventually futile chase.

The rest of the field simply had no response after Team Ineos and in particular Ben Swift set a frantic pace from the base of the final climb.

Bernal finished 23 seconds clear of the Bahrain-Merida chasing duo, with Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jan Hirt (Astana), and Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal) finishing a further 11 seconds down.

Enric Mas (Deceuninck-QuickStep) had attacked with 4.5km to go but he was distanced by Bernal when the Colombian attacked and trailed in 40 seconds down. Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) continued his fine comeback from injury with 10th on the mountain stage.

As for the overall classification, Bernal now leads Dennis by 41 seconds ahead of Saturday’s key individual time trial. Konrad is third at 1:13.

"I think so [that this victory is the most important in my career]. I’m happy for this, I won the TT last year at the Tour de Romandie, so it’s nice to win again in Suisse,” Bernal said at the finish.

"It was difficult to know [when to attack] because you never know how you’re going to feel at the end. I was feeling really good and I said to the guys, as always they did a fantastic job and in the end, I won the stage for them so it’s really nice. It wasn’t easy, they were full gas and even in the wheels, it’s really hard to stay with them in the wheels but I tried to stay calm and the final it was the best decision. We did a really good pace and everyone was full gas for the final.

"I’m not sure [if it is enough time on Rohan Dennis], he’s the world champion in the time trial and for sure, tomorrow I will lose time to him. I hope to not lose too much time but we also have another mountain stage. We will do our best and we will control what we can control.

How it unfolded

After Thursday's foray in the mountains, the Tour de Suisse continued with a similar stage on stage 7 with an early break once again establishing a lead over the main field.

Winner Anacona (Movistar), Steve Morabito (Groupama-FDJ), Mathias Frank (AG2R La Mondiale), Michael Albasini (Mitchelton-Scott), Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), Gino Mader (Dimension Data), and Tsgabu Grmay (Mitchelton-Scott) broke clear and the group established a lead over the first major climb of the day.

However, as the Passo San Gottardo loomed, the peloton began to increase the pressure on the leaders and by the base of the climb only Fränk, Grmay, Morabito, Anacona and Mäder, Bouwman remained at the front.

Their lead sat at just over 2:30 with 25km to go but even before the official climb started Bouwan attacked. Clearly inspired by his teammate Antwan Tolhoek's win on stage 6, the Dutch rider confidently rode clear but within five kilometers he was back in the clutches of the main break. Frank took the opportunity to attack next as Movistar and Ineos combined to reduce the bunch to fewer than 40 riders.

Frank was the last man standing when Ben Swift soared passed him with 5km to go, with Bernal and Dennis on his wheel, and when the Ineos domestique swung over he was replaced by teammate Kenny Ellisonde. The Frenchman could only muster a kilometer on the front and spent most of that chasing an attack from Enric Mas as a number of GC riders, including Marc Soler, began to drop backwards.

With 2.8km to go Bernal attacked and within a couple of hairpins, he was alongside Mas. The next acceleration distanced the Spaniard as Pozzovio and Dennis scrambled to limit their losses ahead of Saturday’s all-important time trial.

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