DISCUSSION Tour de Suisse Stage 6 | Jordi Meeus' powerful sprint, Arnaud de Lie's poor shape and more...

The sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse was the only opportunity for the pure sprinters to shine this edition, and they didn’t want to throw it away.

Just four riders formed the break of the day, with the name of Romain Grégoire standing out. The French had lost the yellow jersey yesterday at the queen stage, and he immediately wanted to be protagonist once again.

It was a pretty uneventful day, with two climbs in the first half of the stage that made a few riders struggle, but they rejoined the bunch during the descent. With everyone together and 100km to go, the teams of the sprinters started to work.

Bora, Picnic and Lotto took turns to reduce the gap between the break and the peloton. The 4 men in front put up a good fight, pushing the peloton to the limit. They were caught with less than 2 kilometres to go, and Bora was the team launching the sprint.

Jordi Meeus was the main favourite and didn’t disappoint, raising his arms at the finish line with a powerful sprint. Davide Ballerini and Lewis Askey completed the podium.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Despite being a stage that was decided by a bunch sprint, there are quite a few things I would like to point out.

Firstly, let's talk about the winner, Jordi Meeus, and his Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe team. The German team has the potential to excel in all possible scenarios in a race. Victories like today's, where Meeus had no rival after Danny van Poppel's great assistance, show that, seeing that Primoz Roglic is no longer the same, their goal in the Tour de France should be to go beyond the general classification.

In the end, betting everything on the Slovenian will not work out well for them, as was demonstrated in the Giro (which Nico Denz and Giulio Pellizzari were able to make up for).

On the other hand, we must not forget the great performance of the breakaway riders. Stefan Kung, Mauro Schmid and Harry Sweeny (Romain Gregoire raised the white flag much earlier) made it very difficult for the peloton. At times it seemed that they might even spring a surprise.

As a result, Kung was rewarded with the combativity award, and the peloton had to push hard until they neutralised the breakaway less than 2 kilometres from the finish.

A typical transition day, before the tough journey that awaits the cyclists tomorrow. The escape died on the beach, because the teams that still have sprinters wanted to fight for the win. With no real trains, it was Red Bull that capitalised on the day, with Jordi Meeus proving far superior to the others.

Visma saw one of its team-mates for the Tour de France go down and lose four minutes at the end. The important thing at the moment is not the time lost, but the after-effects of the crash. Bennot seems to be okay, but it was a high-speed crash, so let's wait and see if he'll be on the start line tomorrow.

The outcome of the stage was predetermined to be a bunch sprint, and so it was. But it took the peloton so much effort to catch the break, we have to give them their flowers. They spent the whole day in front, and even if they lost Grégoire still with many kilometres to go, they withstood the peloton’s force much better than what could have been expected.

Jordi Meeus was the fastest man on paper and he proved it today. Van Poppel did a perfect leadout, he is one of the best men for that. Bora has not announced who will be the sprinter at the Tour de France among Meeus and Welsford, but I think the Belgian is in a better position to be selected. They have both had relatively quiet seasons so far, but Meeus seems a bit more consistent. Welsford basically disappeared after the Tour Down Under in January, same as last year…

A final comment on Arnaud de Lie, he has been struggling the whole season, and the Tour de Suisse is no exception. Considering the weak field of sprinters, he had a great opportunity to get a good result and at least fight for the win. Nothing could be further from the truth, he ended 15th even if he was well positioned within the last 300 meters. Disappointment after disappointment, and the Tour is coming next.