Vacansoleil’s Thomas De Gendt launched an attack with 25 kilometers left in the long and arduous Stage Seven of the Tour de Suisse, gained a minute by the base of the final climb, and held out to win the stage by 35 seconds over Leopard-Trek’s Andy Schleck.
This win is the second in the Tour for Vacansoleil, a smaller, less-well-known team going up against some of the best in the world. (Vacansoliel’s Borut Bozic took a surprise victory in Stage Five.) The team’s sponsors have certainly recouped their investment with these two stages.
Stage Seven was the longest and one of the hardest stages in the Tour. Everyone expected it to be decisive; in a sense it was.
Race leader Damiano Cunego came into the race with a 1:23 advantage over Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema. The next three riders—Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank,) Frank Schleck (Leopard-Trek,) and Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) were all within 39 seconds of Cunego.
Any rider wanting to take the overall win from Cunego, would need to take back time on Stage Seven. Stage Eight, while lumpy, doesn’t offer any challenges sufficient to create a selection, and Stage Nine, the final individual time trial, favors Cunego as much as any of the top contenders.
Stage Seven was the do-or-die stage for general Classification contenders.
For some reasons, the flood of intense attack never came.
Either all the GC contenders gave up on the overall win and were fighting for second, or riders simply made huge tactical blunders, but nobody put pressure on the yellow jersey; nobody forced Damiano Cunego to defend.
This win is the second in the Tour for Vacansoleil, a smaller, less-well-known team going up against some of the best in the world. (Vacansoliel’s Borut Bozic took a surprise victory in Stage Five.) The team’s sponsors have certainly recouped their investment with these two stages.
Stage Seven was the longest and one of the hardest stages in the Tour. Everyone expected it to be decisive; in a sense it was.
Race leader Damiano Cunego came into the race with a 1:23 advantage over Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema. The next three riders—Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank,) Frank Schleck (Leopard-Trek,) and Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) were all within 39 seconds of Cunego.
Any rider wanting to take the overall win from Cunego, would need to take back time on Stage Seven. Stage Eight, while lumpy, doesn’t offer any challenges sufficient to create a selection, and Stage Nine, the final individual time trial, favors Cunego as much as any of the top contenders.
Stage Seven was the do-or-die stage for general Classification contenders.
For some reasons, the flood of intense attack never came.
Either all the GC contenders gave up on the overall win and were fighting for second, or riders simply made huge tactical blunders, but nobody put pressure on the yellow jersey; nobody forced Damiano Cunego to defend.
A large breakaway escaped early in the race, but it contained Movistar rider Branislau Samoilau, 16th in the General Classification. No one wanted to let Samoilau to move up in GC, so the escape was shut down.
The pace for the first two hours was a staggering 45 kph.
Around 80 km in, another large breakaway formed, containing 16 riders: Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank,) Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma,) George Hincapie (BMC,) Christian Vandevelde (Garmin,) Alberto Losada and Luca Paolini (Katusha,) José Ivan Gutierrez, Angel Madrazo and Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar,) Enrico Gasparotto (Astana,) Javier Aramendia (Euskaltel,) Dries Devenyns (Quick Step,) Thomas De Gendt, Sergey Lagutin and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) and Andreas Dietziker (NetApp)
Andy Schleck bridged across to this group and they took off down the road, opening a gap of about seven minutes by the base of the day’s first climb, the Hors Categorie Flüelapass.
The Flüelapass was followed by a very fast descent, a Cat Two climb, more fast descending, and in the final ten kilometers, the Cat One climb up to Serfaus. Thomas De Gendt took off after the Cat Two climb, and nobody marked him. The GC contenders weren’t worried about the stage win, and the riders interested in the stage win assumed he would be ridden down on the climb.
Bank in the peloton, Rabobank set the pace, assisted by RadioShack. Since both teams had riders in the break, it would have made more sense to make Cunego chase; instead, his rivals did the work, in effect hurting the chances of their teammates in the break.
With Rabobank having two riders in the top three, one would think they would have other teammates launch repeated attacks, wearing down Cunego, and then send their top two away in the final kilometers.
Perhaps everyone decided Cunego was too strong, and the smartest move was to race for second. This seems odd, as RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer had been able to drop Cunego the day before.
With no teammates to help him, Cunego should have been a sitting duck; he should have been the object of non-stop attacks until his legs gave out. Instead, his rivals rode almost as teammates for him, protecting him and essentially giving him the race win.
Andy Schleck, who had ridden pretty poorly all through the Tour, put on a big performance in Stage Seven, joining both big breaks and then attacking in the final 8.5 kilometers. Schleck showed great form on the final climb, portions of which ramped up to 15 percent.
The Leopard-Trek rider waited a few kilometers too long, though; the climb flattened out at the top, giving De Gendt the chance to stay away. Had Schleck attacked at the very base of the climb, he might have caught De Gendt on the steep sections and passed him near the end.
As De Gendt crossed the line, a few half-hearted attacks came from the front of the peloton, two kilometers back, but Damiano Cunego, who hadn’t had to work all day, had not trouble covering them. In the final few hundred meters, he launched an attack of his own, just to make sure his lead remained intact.
The top of the GC remained unchanged. Laurent Tehn Dam lost two positions, and the King of the Mountains jersey (taken by Andy Schleck.) None of the top ten made any significant improvement. It seems no one wanted to contest the overall win, and really, nobody challenged for a spot on the podium On the whole, a disappointing and very puzzling day.
| Tour de Suisse Stage Seven Results | |||
| 1 | Thomas De Gendt (Bel) | Vacansoleil | 05:38:42 |
| 2 | Andy Schleck (Lux) | Leopard-Trek | 00:00:35 |
| 3 | Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spa) | Movistar | 00:00:48 |
| 4 | Christian Vandevelde (USA) | Garmin-Cervelo | 00:00:51 |
| 5 | Alberto Losada (Spa) | Katusha | 00:00:54 |
| 6 | Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) | Vacansoleil | 00:01:33 |
| 7 | Jan Bakelants (Bel) | Omega Pharma-Lotto | 00:01:34 |
| 8 | Marco Marcato (Ita) | Vacansoleil | 00:02:30 |
| 9 | George Hincapie (USA) | BMC | 00:02:30 |
| 10 | Manuele Boaro (Ita) | Saxo Bank | 00:02:30 |
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| General Classification after Stage Seven | |||
| 1 | Damiano Cunego (Ita) | Lampre | 27:09:49 |
| 2 | Bauke Mollema (Ned) | Rabobank | 00:01:23 |
| 3 | Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) | Rabobank | 00:01:36 |
| 4 | Frank Schleck (Lux) | Leopard Trek | 00:01:41 |
| 5 | Levi Leipheimer (USA) | RadioShack | 00:01:59 |
| 6 | Jakob Fuglsang (Den) | Leopard Trek | 00:02:38 |
| 7 | Mathias Frank (Swi) | BMC | 00:03:10 |
| 8 | Laurens Ten Dam (Ned) | Rabobank | 00:03:10 |
| 9 | Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) | Katusha | 00:03:11 |
| 10 | Tejay Van Garderen (USA) | HTC-Highroad | 00:03:22 |
