Mattias Skjelmose rallied in the latter half of Sunday’s concluding time trial to win his first WorldTour stage race, the 86th Tour de Suisse. The Dane from Trek-Segafredo held off a rampaging Juan Ayuso to achieve the result of his career so far. Ayuso took the day’s honours, his second stage victory of the race. The celebrations, indeed the entire stage, was muted under the dark cloud of Gino Mäder’s death. Hugo Houle was top Canadian in 37th; he would finish 21st on the GC.
The Situation
Mattias Skjelmose faced a tall order of staving off Saturday’s winner Remco Evenepoel to win the Tour de Suisse. He could take heart that the Belgian was only 13 seconds faster in the opening time trial, which was half the length of Sunday’s.
1) Mattias Skjelmose (Denmark/Trek-Segafredo)
2) Felix Gall (Austria/AG2R-Citroën) +0:08
3) Juan Ayuso (Spain/UAE-Emirates) +0:18
4) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium/Soudal-QuickStep) +0:46
The Course
Sunday’s conclusion was a 25.7-km chrono with a 1.6-km, 8.2 percent climb just before the second intermediate time check.
The #TourdeSuisse2023 comes to a conclusion today with a 25.7km individual time trial between St. Gallen and Abtwil.
Our riders’ start times (CET):
14:34 @bert_bvl
14:36 @MerlierTim
15:00 @k_asgreen
15:11 @JamesKnoxx
15:49 @cattamat
16:22 @EvenepoelRemcoGood luck, guys! pic.twitter.com/AAHW8SDylj
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) June 18, 2023
TotalEnergies’ Pole Maciej Bodnar set an early benchmark of 34:29 but he was just one in a series of chaps who were bumped off the hotseat. Bodnar was soon looking up at 14 guys, including Swiss Stefan Bissegger, who ruled the roost with 32:48.
With Hugo Houle–20th at the start of the day–steaming towards the first intermediate time check, the top-10 started on course. Although it looked like Wout Van Aert might kick Bissegger off his throne, the Swiss time held fast.
Evenepoel cracked the best first intermediate time check at 12:00. Ayuso set the third fastest time there, five seconds slower than the world champion. Skjelmose was in trouble early and Gall was even in worse shape.
Evenepoel then set the best time at the second intermediate time check. Oh yeah? retorted Ayuso, posting up six seconds faster. Behind, Skjelmose caught and passed poor Gall.
Just after Evenepoel usurped Bissegger’s place with 32:33, Ayuso went one better and stopped the clock with 32:25. It was…
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