Tour de Suisse 2017: Pozzovivo wins in La Punt to take yellow jersey

Stage 6 of the Tour de Suisse takes in the San Bernardino Pass and Albula Pass to finish downhill in La Punt. Domenico Pozzovivo attacks on the last climb to leave attacker Michael Woods alone in the rainy descent. Stage victory and leaders jersey for the Italian pocket climber. (Slideshow route/profile)

Results 6th stage 2017 Tour de Suisse

1. Domenico Pozzovivo (ita)
2. Rui Costa (por) + 0.04
3. Ion Izagirre (spa) s.t.
4. Mathias Frank (swi) s.t.
5. Simon Spilak (slo) + 0.12
6. Steven Kruijswijk (nld) s.t.
7. Damiano Caruso (ita) + 0.15
8. Pelle Bilbao (spa) + 0.18
9. Marc Soler (spa) s.t.
10. Michael Woods (can) + 0.21

GC after 6th stage
1. Domenico Pozzovivo (ita)
2. Damiano Caruso (ita) s.t.
3. Steven Kruijswijk (nld) + 0.13
4. Simon Spilak (slo) + 0.22
5. Mathias Frank (swi) + 0.23
6. Marc Soler (spa) + 0.35
7. Rui Costa (por) + 0.54
8. Mikel Nieve (spa) + 1.19
9. Pelle Bilbao (spa) + 1.42
10. Valerio Conti (ita) + 3.02

Race report
After a fast opening a group of ten riders jump clear on the lower slopes of the San Bernardino Pass. Matvey Mamykin bridges across to Jan Bakelants, Tomasz Marczynski, Simone Petilli, Antonio Pedrero, Michael Woods, Ondrej Cink, Carlos Verona, Philip Deignan and Bart de Clerq before they race to a lead of 2 minutes. Not a wide gap, which makes sense as Bakelants is 2’21” down on the leaders jersey.

Bakelants, Petilli en Woods leave their companions behind on the lower slopes of the Albula Pass, while Larry Warbasse and Tao Geoghegan Hart attack in the pack. A little later Woods goes alone, while Hirt replaces Warbasse as Geoghegan Hart’s side-kick before the Czech bids the young Briton goodbye, though he can’t bridge over to Woods.

Attacks are everywhere in the main group on the second half of the pass and Pozzovivo goes alone in the last kms before the summit. Woods crests 10 metres ahead of the Italian, while the other GC contenders are 28 seconds in arrears.

In the rain soaked downhill Pozzovivo leaves Wood behind to solo to victory. Costa, Izagirre and Frank descend faster than the rest of the main group. They gobble up Woods, but fall 4 seconds short to chase down Pozzovivo.

Kruijswijk drops Caruso in the dying metres, which costs the Italian the leaders jersey. Pozzovivo wins a time bonus of 10 seconds which puts them dead level on time and Caruso loses the race-lead on count-back.