The Tour de Suisse has not been on Thibaut Pinot's schedule now for a full seven years. (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images) If there's one race which Sagan has the measure of, it's clearly Suisse. Should that happen again in Suisse, in terms of his own career achievements to date, nobody should be surprised. However, we've been here before, up to a point, as in Sagan has had other lengthy fallow periods with zero wins, only to come back at the top of his game. And with his last road race now April and his last win in September 2021, there's no lack of rumours that his career seems to be in danger of drifting towards an endgame. However, equally tellingly, Sagan's last victory from Suisse dates from 2019, when he last took part in the race. It's not an overnight achievement, either: his first win in Suisse, too, dates way back in 2011 to when he was just starting to impact on racing. It's a notable total even for as a rider as prolifically successful as the 32-year-old Slovakian. The Tour de Suisse has always been something of a talismanic event for Peter Sagan, the winner of 17 stages in the Swiss race. (Image credit: Luca Bettini/SprintCyclingAgency) Yet it is not totally clear if Kuss will be one of the Jumbo-Visma riders in the Tour, given the depth of the team, and his performance in Suisse could be a gamechanger. The American's 2021 Tour de France was hardly what you'd call a failure of course, with that stage win in Andorra part of the massively impressive fightback by Jumbo-Visma following Primoz Roglic's abandon. "It had been just training camps and races and training camps and sometimes you do too much."
So this year I'm doing things a bit different." While a large proportion of those Jumbo-Visma riders tipped for Tour were on the Critérium du Dauphiné with Roglic, Kuss has always planned to be at the Tour de Suisse, telling Cyclingnews as far back as January "I didn't feel close to being my best. Of all the top names said to be set for the Tour de France at Jumbo-Visma, as former Tour de France stage winners and/or race leaders Sepp Kuss and Rohan Dennis are certainly the two highest profile names in the Dutch squad's line-up at the Tour de Suisse. But even voyages in the dark have to have a point where the ship sets sail and Vlasov's performance in the Tour will have its first 'live' test from the moment he starts racing next Sunday in Switzerland. Equally, with fourth in the 2021 Giro d'Italia as his best Grand Tour GC result out of four participations, the Tour de France will also be something of an unknown. What Vlasov will be lacking are his own reference points in Suisse, given that the 26-year-old has never done it before. Hence we can expect their Tour leader Vlasov to go under the microscope from Suisse onwards. On top of that Bora-Hansgrohe's stunning and unprecedented (in any Grand Tour) Giro d'Italia success, means whether the German squad can follow that up in the Tour de France is the next big question for all their rivals. But third in his pre-Tour warm up race at the Critérium du Dauphiné back in 2021 augered well for July and how he gets on in Suisse, his equivalent event, this week will be a key indicator once again Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl)Īfter a breakthrough triumph for Bora-Hansgrohe in the Giro d'Italia, interest in their rider Aleksandr Vlasov in the Tour de Suisse is now not only because the Russian has been notably consistent so far in 2022, nor yet that he's already the winner of Switzerland's other WorldTour stage race, the Tour de Romandie, this year. Thomas' past track record at Suisse is mixed, and it's certainly been a long time since he finished second overall behind Simon Spilak way back in 2015.
Calibre bike trial#
Suisse may be more hilly and slightly less mountainous than other years, but the final long weekend's summit finishes and time trial in Liechtenstein, as well as the depth of the competition, are certainly hard enough to show what his prospects are for July. This time at Suisse, Thomas is back in the race action following from his six week-long training block following the Tour de Romandie. But while of those present Adam Yates is set for a top GC bid in the Tour de France, Tom Pidcock is also strongly rumoured to be making his Tour debut and Daní Martínez could be set for a protected role, the biggest questionmark at the Tour de Suisse of the top Ineos names could well concern Geraint Thomas. Such is their collective strength that the absence of teammate and defending champion Richard Carapaz at the Tour of Suisse could see any number of Ineos Grenadiers riders move into the limelight.
(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)