"I experienced an extraordinary Tour de Suisse" - Küng flies to surprising fifth place, and eyes Tour de France

This was in many ways an unusual Tour de Suisse, with a large portion of the peloton abandoning due to the severe heat or the spread of a Covid-19 outbreak. Stefan Küng however was perhaps the biggest surprise, having ridden himself to a fifth place in the final overall classification after a mountainous race.

In the final time-trial the Swiss was one of the big favourites, however he only managed to finish in third place behind Geraint Thomas and Remco Evenepoel. “The first part was very fast with the tailwind. We planned a target power, but the heat really took its toll, and I couldn’t push harder in the second part," Küng said in a post-race interview. "The plan was to increase the pace a bit, but I had nothing left in my legs. Overall, I experienced an extraordinary Tour de Suisse, but I would have really liked to win the time trial," the European champion added. 

With two individual time-trials, aswell as a few hilly stages and a cobbled day on the menu, Küng will not only have a crucial supporting role in Groupama - FDJ's Tour de France lineup, but he will possibly have several opportunities of his own. He's shown tremendous form of which he can capitalize on.

With Thibaut Pinot's win in the queen stage and Sebastien Reichenbach also riding for a 12th place in the overall classification, the French team ends the race with good feedback, and above all great expectations towards the upcoming Tour de France where they are building a very strong stage-hunting lineup, alongside David Gaudu.