The Spaniard sits in 12th place after the first summit finish of the race.
A short stage, animated by the 25 men who booked a place in the breakaway, unfolded on Thursday afternoon at the Tour de Suisse, the World Tour race which after five days finally gave the overall contenders a chance to shake up the general classification and test their form.
Surprisingly, despite the gap hovering around four minutes and the peloton looking at all times in absolute control, one rider from the front group – Antwan Tolhoek (Jumbo-Visma) – managed to go all the way and win ahead of Egan Bernal (Team Ineos), who attacked from a severely reduced bunch with under two kilometers to go and took over the yellow jersey.
Best young rider of last edition, Enric Mas is racing at the Tour de Suisse for the first time since April’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the young Spaniard showed a promising form on the double-digit gradients of the Flumserberg, a stage finish for the fourth time in the last 24 years. Enric concluded the stage around 50 seconds behind the new GC leader and made a huge jump of 29 places in the standings, up to 12th.
Mas, runner-up last season at the tough Vuelta a España, will have another chance to make inroads in the Tour de Suisse general classification on Friday, when three classified climbs will dot the route of stage 7 – the race’s penultimate mountain showdown: Flims, Lukmanierpass and San Gottardo.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele/ Getty Images
