Tour de Suisse: Bissegger wins stage 4

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Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo) won stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse, beating Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ) and Joey Rosskopf (Rally Cycling) in a three-up breakaway sprint on the Gstaad airfield.

The Swiss rider was a latecomer to a breakaway that itself had taken some 100km to form but ultimately proved successful, as the peloton rolled home more than five minutes down.

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) finished safely in the reduced peloton to retain the yellow jersey as overall leader of the race.

Bissegger missed out on victory to Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) in the opening day time trial but claimed his second victory since turning professional and his first in a road race.

He weathered attacks from Thomas and Rosskopf on the late category-2 climb of the Saaenmoser Pass (7.5km at 4.4 per cent), as the fourth member of the breakaway, Joel Suter (Swiss National Team) lost contact and had to settle for fourth place.

The leading trio tested each other on the wet 6km descent before emerging onto the airfield for a game of cat and mouse. Bissegger forced his rivals to respond by accelerating through the barriered corners that led onto the runway, before swiftly shutting down what proved to be Rosskopf’s final attack. The American then found himself leading out the sprint for the line, with Bissegger hitting out with around 150 metres to go. Rosskopf was spent, while Thomas was unable to match the pace, leaving Bissegger to sit up and roar in delight.

“Finally I got a stage win at the Tour de Suisse. I’m really happy with that,” said Bissegger, who added to his Paris-Nice victory in his first full pro season.

“I would say this one is nicer. This was a normal road stage, and the other one was a time trial, so more for specialists. Both are nice but here in Switzerland it’s maybe even a bit nicer.”

It looked for a moment that Bissegger – who started the day 6:05 down on Van der Poel overall – might be on his way into the yellow jersey, as the peloton called off the chase of the breakaway with 30km remaining. However, despite the gap reaching eight minutes at the foot of the final climb, the pace was sufficiently raised for the general classification leaders to remain in place, despite there being no real action between them on the final climb.

Van der Poel, who had to shut a gap when the bunch briefly split on the airfield, continues to lead the Tour de Suisse by one second over Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep), with Küng third at four seconds.

How it unfolded

The peloton was seven riders short as it rolled out from St.Urban, as Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert withdrew from the race after learning of a positive COVID-19 test among their staff.

The 171km stage was largely flat before the late climb and descent, but the racing was anything but calm, with a long and intense fight for the breakaway.

Bissegger and Suter made their intentions clear as the early moves came and went, while there was a brief moment of drama when Van der Poel found himself off the front. Only after 50 kilometres did a group manage to establish a gap over the peloton, and even then it was shaky.

There were six riders in the move: Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Hugo Houle (Astana-Premier Tech) Antwan Tolhoek (Jumbo-Visma), and Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo), Simon Pellaud (Swiss National Team), Jelle Wallays (Cofidis). The best-placed on GC was Burghardt, at 3:27.

They gained a lead of a minute but the peloton didn’t let them go, with Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Fenix teammates setting a strong tempo. The gap came down to 45 seconds, then back up over a minute, then back down again. At that point, with 71km on the clock and 100km remaining, and with the gap still small, several riders hit out from the peloton to try and bridge to the break. Fourth-placed Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was off the front as a group of 12 counter-attackers made it to the break, but that was soon snuffed out and the peloton came back together once more.

The next move, with 95km remaining, proved to be the good one. Suter, Rosskopf, and Thomas went clear first of all, but it was a struggled to establish a gap as more counter attacks came from behind. Alex Howes (EF Education-Nippo), Mark Donovan (Team DSM) and Luke Durbridge (BikeExchange) tried and failed before Bissegger took off alone and successfully made the bridge.

As he did so, with 78km to go, the escape group had a lead of 2:30, and that grew to seven minutes over the subsequent 20km as the rain began to fall.

Suter won the intermediate sprint in Pohlern with 55km to go, at which point the peloton sprang into life, sensing the break had what could well be a winning margin. Cofidis put their whole team on the front, working for Christophe Laporte, and they were soon joined by Movistar, working for Ivan Cortina.

Alpecin-Fenix put one rider up front but never really looked too concerned about defending the yellow jersey, and so Cofidis and Movistar were left to go it alone. They struggled to make inroads, however, and with 30km to go and the gap still standing at 5:30, they sat up and knocked off their effort. The gap to the breakaway quickly began to rise once more and it was clear the winner would be one of the front four.

With such hesitation and drop in pace, it looked like the break could get the sort of advantage that could put Bissegger or Suter – both within seven minutes of Van der Poel – into yellow. However, Alpecin-Fenix, Astana, and Ineos were among the teams who came to the front of the bunch to set a tempo, if not chase properly.

Suter won the second intermediate sprint at the end of a long false flat, and just before the final climb began with 17km to go. They took on the Saaenmoser Pass – 7.5km at 4.4 per cent – with a lead of eight minutes.

Rosskopf was the chief aggressor on the lower slopes and while Thomas and Bissegger matched him comfortably, Suter started to struggle. He was distanced but not definitively dropped, rising his own pace while keeping the others in sight. Back in the peloton, Bahrain Victorious were working on the approach and reduced the gap to seven minutes on the lower slopes. There were even attacks, as Anton Palzer (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Damien Touzé (AG2R Citroën) briefly clipped off the front as the pace and urgency increased.

Towards the top of the climb, with 10km to go, Thomas put in a big attack, taking him over the crest with a lead of a few seconds. Rosskopf was first to react before Bissegger gapped him in the last few metres. On the plateau beyond the summit, Bissegger linked up with Thomas and they looked around to see Rosskopf not just joining but attacking.

The trio came together for the 6km descent, although it was a loose alliance, with the three of them putting in small digs. They emerged together at the entrance to the Gstaad airfield with 3km to go.

Bissegger saw the two barriered corners that led them onto the runway as an opportunity to accelerate and open gaps. Thomas was onto him, while Rosskopf subsequently made contact under the 2km-to-go banner. The American bided his time before launching his last major roll of the dice, but it was to no avail as Bissegger was quickly onto it.

The three riders then resigned themselves to settle things in a sprint, with Rosskopf already appearing defeated as he slowly led through the final kilometre. He kicked with just under 200 metres to go but Bissegger’s final acceleration was telling.