Alexander Kristoff of Katusha sprinted to victory on stage seven of the Tour De Suisse.
With Thibaut Pinot of FDJ still in the lead from Geraint Thomas of Team Sky, the riders took on a 164.6 kilometre stage from Biel/Bienne to Düdingen and it was Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep), Silvan Dillier (BMC), Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge) and Axel Domont (Ag2r-La Mondiale) who were able to form a break.
They were 2.51 ahead with one hundred kilometres left and after Darrly Impey had taken the points on the climb at Fribourg and Domont the points on the climb at St. Antoni, their lead was down to just fifty five seconds.
Domont was first at the intermediate sprint at Schmitten with fifty kilometres remaining with a lead of just over a minute but one that was back down to fifty seconds twenty kilometres later.
Kwiatkowski went to the front to lead the escapers over the climb at St. Antoni for a second time which now did not include Domont who had been dropped.
Impey, Dillier and Kwiatkowski kept going, despite attacks from Katusha and Peter Sagan amongst others but they stayed clear until they were inside the final kilometre with Kwiatkowski, the World Champion, aught with just five hundred kilometres left,
The peloton pounced and out of it came Alexander Kristoff of Katusha to win in 3.38.07 ahead of Peter Sagan, Davide Camolai, Greg Van Avermaet and Arnold Demare.
Thibaut Pinot keeps the leader jersey going into stage eight which finishes in Berne.
"It was a hard day," said Kristoff. "I haven’t felt super in this Tour de Suisse but I did a good sprint today.
“I got ahead of Sagan and I was able to go again at the end to hold off his run. I felt I had him but it was hard with the uphill run to the line.
"The team did an awesome job and I’m happy with how I finished it off in the end.”