Felix Gall entered the queen stage of the Tour de Suisse in the yellow jersey, but despite this he and AG2R went on the attack. With the time-trial ahead the Austrian looked to increase his buffer, however lost the race lead at the end of the day.
"We tried our best. It was nice to see the team riding like this. I said we shouldn't wait and try something on the last climb," Gall told CyclingPro.net at the end of the day. An acceleration from Clément Berthet saw the group split still far from the summit, with both Mattias Skjelmose and Remco Evenepoel dropped. However the duo worked together throughout the rest of the ascent to limit losses and although Gall has collaboration from Wilco Kelderman and Pello Bilbao, the Dane returned in the final descent.
This is where the 25-year struggled, in the very fast descent he lost a few bike lengths to his group and at the finish line shed 4 seconds to the group, led in by Skjelmose who would've gotten the race lead either ways due to the bonus seconds he took on the line. "In the end I am a few seconds short of keeping the jersey, but it was still a beautiful day, although the descent was a bit too crazy for me," he admits. "But of course I am also a little disappointed.”
Gall maintains a second place in the overall classification, the 8 seconds back on Skjelmose do allow him to dream of another day in yellow with today's hilltop finish suiting his skills. “Races of a week are where my strength now lies, maybe also in one-day races. The high mountains are a new experience. I need to do more races like this to get to know my body better, but today was a step in the right direction," he concluded.
🇨🇭 @tds Encore un très bon travail de toute l'équipe qui aura roulé toute la journée pour protéger le maillot de leader de Felix 👏🏼👏🏼 Another great job by the whole team, who rode all day to protect Felix's leader's jersey 👏🏼👏🏼 #AG2RCITROËNTEAM #MadeinTheAlps - © Getty
