Movistar's Rui Costa won the second stage of the 78th Tour De Suisse this afternoon.
It was straight into the mountains after yesterday's time trial for the riders in this 216.5km stage from Verbania in Italy to the ski resort of Verbier in Switzerland.
The race also took in one Hors category climb and went through the town of Martigny where Coventry City had a pre-season game in 2009, a finish and start town for stages in the 2010 Tour De France and the start town for tomorrow's third stage.
A group of riders got off the front on a cloudy day and had a seven minute lead before they were hauled back and only two riders in Alessandro Bazzana and Spider Tech's Canadian Ryan Anderson were left at the front with 38kms to go.
The field which included the likes of Brits Steve Cummings and Adam Blythe as well as the superstars such as Cancellera, Sagan and Boonen was 34 seconds down as the race went through Feld.
Rain greeted the riders in Martigny which today was staging an intermediate sprint and yellow jersey wearing Peter Sagan rode away after the escapers had been caught to get the three points .
Sagan added three more seconds at Sembrancher for the second sprint of the day before the final climb up to the ski station at the 1497m Verbier ahead of Poels.
Nicholas Roche's (Pictured below) AG2R team were at the front as Peter Sagan dropped off the peloton and was in a second group on the road.
Raboban's Laurent Ten Dam, who was eighth in last year's race, attacked with 8kms to go only to be brought back by the Radio Shack Nissan team in a group of thirty riders.
Frank Schleck (pictured below) was the next to attack with six to go.
Schleck took a 25 second lead but with 4kms, AG2R's John Cadret went after him.. Schleck continued past the cuckoo clock style houses on the mountainside on the re-surfaced road
Rui Costa had Schleck in his sights with 300m to go. Costa caught him with 150m to go and passed him to ride to victory in a time of 6.21.14.
Nieve was third with Caruso fourth. Nicholas Roche was in the top six but with the ten second time bonus, Costa had done enough to give him the leaders yellow jersey some eight seconds ahead of Schleck. Roche is fifth 21 seconds back.
Tomorrow's stage is from Martigny to Aarberg and is 194.7 km.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM