Tony Martin managed to defend his lead on the eighth stage of the Tour De Suisse
A 219km stage from Delémont to Verbier, a climb which has two parts, the first has a category three climb and the second part has a 13.4km climb with the mountain points being awarded some 1.8 kilometres from the finish in the town centre of Verbie and saw Tony Martin of Omega Pharma Quick Step with a twenty eight second lead over Tom Doumoulin.
After Daniel Teklehaimanot of MTN-Qhubeka was forced to abandon the race following a crash, a group of six riders in Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Christian Knees (Team Sky), Sébastien Minard (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Gregory Rast (Trek Factory Racing), Nathan Brown (Garmin-Sharp) and Laurens De Vreese (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), got clear with a lead of 1.10 after thirty kilometres and then 4.20.
With 55kms left, Peter Kennaugh of Team Sky got off his bike and abandoned as the break steadied at 4.30.
Rojas took the points on the category three climb as the riders attention turned towards the finish at Verbier.
Danilo Wyss of BMC tried for a solo break but was caught with 3.5kms left and it was Johan Esteban Chaves of Orica-GreenEdge who was first to the summit.
The Colombian had chasers but no-one was able to ruin his day and Chaves took the stage win in 5.11.16, some three seconds ahead of Tinkoff Saxo's Roman Kreuziger and Bauke Mollema of Belkin.
Tony Martin finished in seventh place, one behind Ireland's Philip Deignan of Team Sky, which was enough to keep him in yellow going into the final stage of the race on Sunday.