Tour de Suisse 2014 – Stage 7 Preview
By David Hunter
Stage 6 Recap
Michael Albasini made the break! As I said, he didn’t think he could beat Sagan in a sprint, so went for a long one. Sky went crazy on the penultimate climb and caught the break. Then on the final climb, Frank and Pinot attacked. They didn’t get away as Peter Sagan flew past them. He continued to attack on the descent and on the flat run to the line. Why he did this nobody knows! All he had to do was wait for the sprint, but again he made a mistake. Tony Martin then did a monster lead-out for Matteo Trentin. He delivered his teammate in a brilliant position and his speed stopped the others from challenging. Trentin took a quite brilliant win, Bennati was 2nd and Gavazzi 3rd. Quite how Sagan, Swift and Modolo missed out, will remain a mystery!
Stage 7 Worb – Worb 24.7km
It’s TT time!
The riders face a challenging circuit around Worb. There is hardly any flat, and two climbs.
The opening climb is 3.4km at 6%, with the second one 4km at 2.8%. These are not tough climbs, in a normal race, but difficult in a TT.
The course is not very technical and has long straight sections of road. This is perfect for the riders with big engines.
Tony Martin is the massive favourite and he has the added incentive of trying to gain as much time, on GC, as possible. With the Verbier coming up on stage 8, he’ll need plenty!
Fabian Cancellara has had a very quiet Tour, by his standards. This should be his time to shine.
Alex Dowsett has to be considered a favourite. He went very well in the opening section, in the stage 1 TT, and this profile suits him.
Tom Dumoulin is Mr. 2nd place. He has 3 2nd places to his name, already this season. He is fast becoming one of the best TT riders in the world and will look to post a fast time.
Rohan Dennis has been in great TT form this season, but has looked a shadow of himself, this week. Does he have a problem? Has he been saving himself for this stage?
We should have 2 battles: one for the stage and one between the GC riders.
Mollema, Rui Costa, Kreuziger, Frank, Pinot, Slagter, Izagirre, Henao, Evans and Chernetckii are all within 34 seconds of each other. This is a massive stage for all of them, as it could end their GC hopes.
In the recent Bayern Rundfahrt ITT, Mathias Frank beat Thibaut Pinot by 46 seconds, over 25.5km. The Frenchman needs to deliver a much better TT, if he wants to take the overall.
The fight should really be between Mollema, Rui Costa and Kreuziger. It’s not really fair to compare these riders based on the 2013 TT, as it was much harder. The 2nd TT in the 2013 Tour de France, is fairly similar to this stage. On that day, Kreuziger was 4th and Mollema 11th, with 1:46 between them.
Rui Costa spent a lot of the Winter working on his TT bike, but hasn’t seen any major improvement yet, this season.
Interestingly, Rui Costa, Frank and Pinot were only separated by 4 seconds in the Romandie TT.
One thing is for certain, both Kreuziger and Rui Costa have a better TT bike than Mollema. This should be a crucial advantage.
Keep an eye out for Chernetckii. He is the dark horse of the race and capable of an excellent TT. The other riders underestimate him, at their peril!
Predicition time…
Big Tony for the win, Dumoulin 2nd and Kreuziger to be the best of the GC riders.
David Hunter
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