Costa Wins The Tour De Suisse

Last updated : 16 June 2013 By Covsupport News Service

Portugal's Rui Costa took overall victory in the Tour De Suisse, storming to a win on the ninth stage.

The final stage was a 26.8km individual time trial from Bad Ragaz at 513m to the up hill finish on the 1383m Flumserberg.

With the road pretty flat for ten kilometres, many of the riders chose to start with time trial bikes before switching at the foot of the Flumserberg climb to a bike better able to deal with mountains.

Gatis Smukulis (Katusha) set the early time to beat of 55.35 before Orica GreenEdge's Daryl Impey finished ten seconds quicker, Andreas Klöden (Radioshack-Leopard) came in with a time of 54:36 and yesterday's stage winner Peter Sagan of Cannondale came home in a time of 53:57.

We got down to the final few riders, all of whom were in with a chance of winning the General Classification. Rui Costa (Movistar) was only thirteen seconds down on Mathias Frank at the start of the day and Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) was 23 seconds down and both knew that a good ride could give them the overall victory.

Jon Izaguirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) finished 33 seconds faster than Sagan and 26 seconds quicker than Jeannesson before Peter Velits (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) set a time of 53:32, Amador (Movistar) finished in 52:39, Jean-Chrstophe Peraud (Ag2r-La Mondiale) came home 0.63 of a second even quicker before Tanel Kangert set the  new fastest time of 52:17.

Frank needed a big ride but he was dropping back and was soon 40 seconds behind the time of Rui Costa, who was tearing up the road.

Kreuziger finished in a time of 52:56 but Costa was flying and he finished in a time of 51:56 to take the stage win and retain his overall title, after Frank finished in 53.52 for a final fifth placed overall placing.

Joining Costa on the podium were Bauke Mollema (Blanco), who finished 1.02 down with Roman Kreiziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) third.