Tour de Suisse: Lampaert wins stage 8 time trial as Bernal holds yellow jersey

Yves Lampaert (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won stage 8 of the Tour de Suisse, while Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) will carry the yellow jersey into Sunday’s finale after delivering a strong display in the 19.2km time trial around Goms.

Lampaert was among the day’s early starters and had a long wait in the hot seat, but the closest challenge to his mark came from teammate Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who finished second on the stage, 5 seconds down. Søren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) took third place, a further 5 seconds back.

World time trial champion Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) was the favourite to claim stage honours after winning last weekend’s opening time trial and performing so strongly throughout the week.

The Australian may well have paid for those efforts, however. He was 12 seconds behind Lampaert at the 10km mark and he was unable to recoup his losses on the back end of the course, eventually placing 6th on the stage, 18 seconds down.

Dennis had begun the day 41 seconds down on Bernal and within striking distance of his overall lead, but come the intermediate checkpoint, it was already apparent that the Colombian had the wherewithal to retain the yellow jersey.

Bernal only conceded 19 seconds to Dennis in the opening segment of the course, which saw the road climb gradually before descending gently to the intermediate time check in Obergesteln. He then maintained that margin over the remainder of the course despite enduring a late scare when his rear wheel skidded on a sharp left-hand corner with a little over 3km remaining.

In the hot seat, Lampaert put a hand to his mouth in shock as he watched a slow-motion replay of the incident, but Bernal managed to stay upright and did not allow the incident to unsettle him on the narrow, twisting roads in the closing part of the course.

“I was a little bit scared because I took the corner really fast. It was a risk but I think I took a couple of seconds in the corner,” Bernal said.

Bernal eventually placed 11th on the stage, 37 seconds behind Lampaert, which sufficed to keep him in the yellow jersey with a buffer of 22 seconds over Dennis ahead of Sunday’s concluding stage, a short but tough mountainous leg that takes the peloton over the 2436m-high Furkapass.

“I was thinking this morning maybe I would lose the yellow so it’s a big surprise for me,” Bernal said. “I was fighting for this jersey with world champion in the TT so I can be happy with this performance.”

Pozzovivo slips down the rankings

The stage win was Lampaert’s first victory of the season and the second time trial triumph of his career after the 2017 Belgian time trial championship. He admitted afterwards that he was surprised to have beaten a time triallist of the calibre of Dennis.

“I am very surprised, I did not expect this at all," Lampaert said. “I know I can do a good time trial, but there were a lot of specialists on the start list. I am very surprised, but I am very happy. I went better than the world champion Rohan Dennis, but of course he has given a lot in the climbing stages this week.”

New Zealanders Tom Scully (EF Education First) and Paddy Bevin (CCC) placed 4th and 5th, respectively, both 13 seconds down on Lampaert. Dennis was the best-placed of the GC contenders in 6th place and the Australian is still on course to finish on the podium of the Tour de Suisse.

Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) remains in third place overall after taking 30th on the stage, 1:11 down, but the Austrian’s deficit on Bernal has stretched out to 1:46. Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal) moves up to 4th overall, a further 8 seconds down.

Benoot – like Jan Hirt (Astana), who now lies 5th overall – was among the beneficiaries of a subdued outing from Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida). The Italian, who so impressed at San Gottardo on Friday, endured a trying afternoon here. He placed 99th on the stage, 2:17 behind Lampaert, and he drops to 8th overall, now some 2:56 behind Bernal.

Already winner of Paris-Nice this season, Bernal is now on the cusp of adding the Tour de Suisse to his palmares and in the process of making a claim on leadership of Team Ineos for next month’s Tour de France.

“I think that we will try to keep the jersey and not do any crazy things,” Bernal said of his approach to Sunday’s final stage. “We have won a stage and now we’re in yellow with one day to go. We will try to keep the jersey. If Bahrain want to win maybe they will try something. We will just try to keep the jersey.”

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