Thomas De Gendt wins seventh stage and Cunego takes overall lead in 2011 Tour de Suisse
Vacansoleil-DCM team’s Thomas De Gendt won the seventh stage of 2011 Tour de Suisse on Friday, June 17. Damiano Cunego maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Vaduz (FL) and ended in Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis. The 24-year-old Belgian took a total of 5 hours, 38 minutes and 42 seconds to cover a distance of 222.8 kilometres.
After finishing the stage, Thomas said, "I was really thinking he was going to catch me in the final kilometres. I just had to give it full gas to try and stay in front.”
Recently, Thomas won the first stage of Paris-Nice and took the overall second spot in Circuit de Lorraine.
Andy Schleck of Leopard Trek tried his best to take a lead, but he failed and grabbed the second spot with 35 seconds adrift. Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil of Movistar finished third with the difference of 48 seconds.
His team-mate, Wouter Poels, was also in good form, but he grabbed the 29th spot with a difference of 5 minutes and 25 seconds.
A group of three riders made their first breakaway early in the stage including, Thomas De Gendt, Jose Gutierrez Palacios and Jan Bakelants.
All of them gained advantage of few seconds over the peloton. Thomas won the first two sprints. However, in the third sprint Andy Schleck and Thomas were a part of the 17-man breakaway. Both gained a lead of 6 minutes and 45 seconds over the peloton.
Andy attacked, but failed and Thomas crossed the finish-line without any difficulty.
The Italian rider, Damiano, took the overall standings with a timing of 27 hours, 9 minutes and 49 seconds. Rabobank team’s Bauke Mollema was runner-up with 1 minute and 23 seconds behind Cunego.
Cunego said, "I don't have the same capacities in the time trial as some of my big rivals, but we'll see how I go, I've trained specifically on a time trial bike and improved my position. Leipheimer is probably my biggest rival. Today I simply had to keep
an eye on him."
The sixth stage winner, Steven Kruijswijk, was in the third spot with a difference of 1 minute and 36 seconds.
The next stage will start in Tubach and end in Schaffhausen. All the riders will cover the distance of 167.3 kilometres.
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