Peter Sagan wins eighth stage and Damiano Cunego extends his overall lead in 2011 Tour De Suisse
Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Peter Sagan won the eighth stage of Tour De Suisse 2011 on Saturday June 18. The Italian rider, Cunego maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Tubach and ended in Schaffhausen. The 21-year-old Peter took a total of 3 hours, 52 minutes to cover the distance of 167.3 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Peter said, "It was a really hard finale but thankfully in the final kilometre I had (teammate) Daniel Oss leading me out, Im very satisfied with this second win and the points jersey. It's been a huge success for me this week."
Recently, Peter took the overall lead in Giro di Sardegna and grabbed the second spot in Philadelphia International Championship. He also won the points classification in Tour of California.
Daniel Oss of Liquigas-Cannondale was also in good form and tried his best to catch the 28 cyclists, but he failed and grabbed the 29th spot with a difference of 12 seconds ahead of Kevin De Weert.
A group of three cyclists made their first breakaway in Beringen, including, Jaroslaw Marycz of Saxo Bank Sungard, Francisco Ventoso of Movistar, Luca Paolini of Katusha.
All of them gained a lead of few seconds over the peloton, but Jaroslaw increased his pace and took the first sprint. However, Luca Paolini took the second sprint ahead of Jaroslaw.
The four riders, Luca Paolini, Jaroslaw Marycz, Jose Joaquin and Andy Schleck were taking a lead in the first climb of the stage. Andy Schleck maintained his pace and stretched the gap.
In the final 12 kilometres, the two riders, Paolini and Marycz, were swept away while Leopard trek maintained his pace. However, in the final few kilometres, Luca Paolini took first and second climb.
Andy Schleck won the overall King of Mountain (KOM) title with 44 points, ahead of Laurens Ten Dam and Damiano. Lloyd Mondory of AG2R la Mondiale took the title of sprint classification with 27 points and Thomas was in the second spot with 12 points.
Damiano took the overall classification with a timing of 31 hours, 1 minute and 49 seconds, while Steven Kruijswijk of Rabobank was the runner-up with a difference 1 minute and 36 seconds.
Franck Schleck finished third with a difference of 1 minute and 59 seconds, while the stage winner, Peter, was in the 50th spot.
The Italian said, "I've got quite a good lead and I'm in great form at the moment so it's up to the guys behind me to catch me."
The final stage will start in Schaffhausen (ITT) and all the riders will cover a small distance of 32.1 kilometres.
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