Preview: Tour de Suisse. Hills, Alps and fireworks to be had in a week-long carnage stage-race
Cycling
From the 12th to the 19th of June the World Tour peloton will have it's final preparation race before the Tour de France. Running at the same time as the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de Suisse has tough competition, but every years the eight-stage race sees premier startlist and this year is no exception.
The race will be split into two halves, as the first five stages all contain hilly terrain and the last three will be decisive for the overall classification. Everyday can be important though, as right from day one the riders will face some tough hills, and all throughout the first four stages there will be obstacles to tackle. In some there will be reduced bunch sprints, others breakaways, and GC attacks can be expected too... Very chaotic and unpredictable racing to follow.
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On the fifth day of racing the battle can spark, on the hills of southern Switzerland next to Italy where it will be a very treacherous day with more opportunities for raids to succeed. On stage six the race will take a turn into the mountains, with what may be considered the queen stage as the riders will go up the Nufenenpass and the Moosalp, two long ascents with harsh gradient and a lot of altitude involved aswell.
The seventh day of racing will see the riders ride up the long Lukmanierpass, but the day is to be decided late in the day in the summit finish at Malbun. The finale will be in Liechenstein where the race will be concluded, with the final day time-trial having 25 kilometers in length to wrap up the race and the overall classification.
The final startlist includes: Adam Yates, Daniel Martínez, Tom Pidcock, Geraint Thomas, Dylan van Baarle, Benoît Cosnefroy, Alexey Lutsenko, Gino Mäder, Michael Matthews, Aleksandr Vlasov, Sergio Higuita, Max Schachmann, Ion Izagirre, Bryan Coquard, Soren Kragh Andersen, Thymen Arensman, Rigoberto Uran, Hugh Carthy, Neilson Powless, Thibaut Pinot, Stefan Küng, Alexander Kristoff, Domenico Pozzovivo, Jakob Fuglsang, Patrick Bevin, Rohan Dennis, Sepp Kuss, Alex Aranburu, Remco Evenepoel, Kasper Asgreen, Marc Hirschi, Alessandro Covi, Marc Soler, Matteo Trentin, Jay Vine, Peter Sagan, Anthony Turgis and Quinn Simmons.
CyclingUpToDate prediction:
**** Daniel Martínez
*** Aleksandr Vlasov, Remco Evenepoel
** Jakob Fuglsang, Adam Yates, Gino Mäder
* Ion Izagirre, Sergio Higuita, Jay Vine, Rohan Dennis
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024