Peter Sagan has had a difficult period that does not end, but winning the third stage of the Around Switzerland race gives him reason to be optimistic. The three-time world champion last won the stage race Around Slovakia last September, but after joining the Total Energie team, he has not yet had a single triumph. Until now.
In the spurt of the third stage in the city of Grenchen, he walked to the last hundreds of meters from third place. It seemed too early, but the other sprinters fell asleep and Bryan Coquard’s rapid finish came too late. “It’s hard for me to go back to my former form because I was sick and without racing for three months. It just takes time,” Sagan said after the stage.
–
How did the stage go?
Six refugees were the first to go to the watch town of Grenchen, where the peloton of the Around Switzerland race had visited for the third time in its almost 90-year history. The most famous name? Philippe Gilbert. The best mountaineer, at least according to the race classification? Quinn Simmons. But someone else had the most stamina.
Home team Stefan Bissegger, who, despite his twenty-three years, is already one of the dreaded time watchers and won one stage in Switzerland a year ago, longed for another triumph on his home roads. It would suit him as well, as his season this year is definitely not as dazzling as last year, so is his EF Education First-EasyPost team.
The American team is fighting for its survival in WorldTour and still has to worry about the place among the eighteen best teams in the UCI rankings (as well as BikeExchange, Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto Soudal). That’s why team director Jonathan Vaughters was excited during the stage about the news from France, where his charges Ruben Guerreiro and Esteban Chaves won the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge, a race with two climbs to the famous Wind Mountain.
Bissegger could add another valuable triumph and was the last of the refugees to resist the pressure of the peloton. In the hot Swiss weather, he tried, but eleven kilometers before the finish in the watch center, his time at the head of the stage was over. One of the riders from the still very large peloton had to claim the victory in the sprint.
And that driver is Peter Sagan, who clearly won the finish ahead of the fast, but also late, approaching Bryan Coquard. On the contrary, the stage ended uncomfortably for the second man in the order, Maximilian Schachmann, who fell four kilometers before the finish and did not catch up with the racing peloton.
–
