'Ronca' claims notable 6th at grueling final stage in the Valais cols; Marc -together with Héctor Carretero- seeks to anticipate the GC contenders at early climbs, ends up in 12th overall.
Egan Bernal (INS) notched up on Sunday his second WorldTour stagerace win of 2019 after coping with the moves of his biggest rival, Rohan Dennis (TBM), at the monster final stage of the Tour de Suisse. Today’s route, only 101km around Ulrichen, had 3,000m of elevation gain with three ‘Hors Categorie’ climbs: Nufenenpass, Gotthard and Furkapass.
The Movistar Team sought to turn the tables from their GC situation at the first climb, joining the early moves with Héctor Carretero and a brilliant Marc Soler, part of the pursuit group of stage winner Hugh Carthy (EF1) until the foot of the Furka. There, the GC group was strung out by the pace from Astana and a resilient Carlos Betancur stayed next to the yellow jersey up until the final 2km of climbing, when only six riders were able to follow Bernal and Soler had already been caught.
Dennis’ late attack allowed Betancur reaching back to the riders which followed the Australian and Bernal, which took him up to 6th in the stage, leading his group home, and 8th overall, with Soler in 12th. The Movistar Team, quite active mostly into the mountain stages, takes the team prize in their final stagerace of June.
Cover picture (c): BettiniPhoto