Tour de Suisse 2024: UAE Team Emirates display dominance again as Adam Yates leads home one-two with Joao Almeida on stage 5

On another thrilling summit finish at the 2024 Tour de Suisse, Adam Yates has again proven to be the strongest of the general classification hopefuls, taking the stage win and firming up his hold on the Maillot Jaune.

With two serious climbing tests early in the day, a very strong breakaway group of five riders moved clear. Forming the lead group were the quintet of Alexey Lutsenko, Stephen Williams, Einer Rubio, Nans Peters and Johannes Staune-Mittet. Rubio was the best placed in the GC at 2:23 down and as such, the peloton was allowing too much of a gap to form.

Once the final climb began, there was almost immediately a flash point in the breakaway as at a Tissot intermediate sprint, where a watch was on offer for the first across the line, Rubio and Staune-Mittet were involved in a very fierce battle for the line. In the end, it was the Movistar Team man who won it, but in the process, the break lost a number as Williams dropped out.

With around 11km to go, the breakaway were swept up by the peloton being led by the INEOS Grenadiers. Once the break were caught however, UAE Team Emirates came to the front of the group, immediately stringing things out and causing mass damage behind. As soon as the pace lulled momentarily though, Matthew Riccitello and Matteo Badilatti attacked. They weren't in tandem long though, as Riccitello accelerated again to move clear solo.

As UAE Team Emirates slowly but surely accelerated however, the young American was caught with 6.7km still to go. Then with 6km to go, Joao Almeida took over at the head of the group and began to decimate things even further in the ever dwindling lead group, with the likes of reigning Tour de Suisse champion Mattias Skjelmose and Team Visma | Lease a Bike duo Wilco Kelderman and Cian Uijtdebroeks dropping out of the group.

As Almeida continued the pace, only Yates, Egan Bernal, Riccitello and Enric Mas remained in the group. Then finally, with just under 2km to go, Yates launched his attack. Despite his rivals initially being put into difficulty both Bernal and Mas were able to get back to the wheel of the Maillot Jaune. Soon though, both were dropped by the Brit as he raced towards the stage win. In fact, the closest of the Brit's challengers was proving to be his own teammate as Almeida picked up and passed Mas and Bernal, despite his monster pull on the front up the climb.

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