Tour de Suisse 2016 Route stage 5: Brig-Glis – Carì

It has been five years since the Tour de Suisse visited Brig-Glis for the last time. Back then, the pack raced to Grindelwald in a stage that ended in a sprint-à-deux won by Peter Sagan ahead of Damiano Cunego. Surrounded by mountains, Brig-Glis is the birth place of Gianni Infantino, the new boss of FIFA, who aims at organizing World Cup Soccer with 40 teams.

Leaving Brig-Glis the riders follow the river Rotten upstream towards the Rhône Glacier. Obviously, this is the source of the river Rhône, but something a lot less obvious: the Rotten is actually the first part of river Rhône. No rider will mind, though. The fact that their heading towards the glacier means they are climbing up the Furka Pass, a 16.7 kilometres ascent at 6.3%, so they have something else to worry about than the confusing naming of rivers and glaciers. By the way, the Furka Pass is something special for James Bond-fans as the famous car chase in Goldfinger was shot here.

After the plunge down to Hospental it goes straight back up to the Saint Gotthard Pass, a steady climb of 8.5 kilometres at 5.9%. The top lies at an elevation of 2,102 metres and in tenths of kilometres the riders fly to the foot of the closing climb, at 733 metres.

Stage 5 in the 2016 Tour de Suisse leads to Carì, a ski resort at an elevation of 1,650 metres. Starting in the Leventina valley the closing climb is a 11.2 kilometres at 8,0%.

Last year, stage 5 was the Queen Stage of the Tour de Suisse. At the Rettenbachferner in Austria Thibaut Pinot climbed to victory.

At the line, time bonuses at 10, 6 and 4 seconds lay waiting, while intermediate sprints come with 3, 2 and 1 seconds each.

Race results/race report stage 5.

Tour de Suisse 2016 stage 5: Route maps, height profiles, etc.

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