Thomas Löfkvist continued his strong start to the Tour de Suisse by moving up to sixth place overall at the end of stage two.
Swede goes well on Verbier as Costa takes stage win
Thomas Löfkvist continued his strong start to the Tour de Suisse by moving up to sixth place overall at the end of stage two.
The Swede had been on the fringes of the top 10 after the opening stage time trial but put in an impressive showing on the tough finishing climb to Verbier to improve his position on Sunday.
A high pace on the slopes of the steep ascent saw several contenders drop back, but Löfkvist held on bravely to finish the stage in 14th position.
He finished 25 seconds back on stage winner Rui Costa (Movistar), who passed early attacker Frank Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan) within sight of the finish line.
Costa sprang clear of a main group that contained Löfkvist with just one kilometre of the climb remaining but still had time to overhaul a flagging Schleck, who had gone up the road much earlier on the ascent.
Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) finished 10 seconds behind the winner in third place, with Giampaolo Caruso (Katusha) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ-BigMat) completing the top five on the challenging climb.
Xabier Zandio and Michael Barry were the next Team Sky riders home after Löfkvist.
Standings
Costa went to the top of the overall standings by eight seconds ahead of Schleck, with pre-stage leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) falling adrift towards the end of the 218km test.
At the start of the day Ryan Anderson (Spidertech Powered by C10) and Alessandro Bazzana (Team Type 1-Sanofi) formed a two-man breakaway group that stayed up the road for most of the stage.
They were initially given plenty of leeway by the peloton but once the main group kicked up the pace the duo's advantage soon came tumbling down.
After the catch was made, overnight leader Sagan accelerated out of the peloton to take maximum points at two intermediate sprints, earning him a total of six bonus seconds to pad his advantage with.
However, it soon became clear that the young Slovak was merely concerned about adding to his lead in the points competition as he drifted away at the bottom of the final climb.
Laurens Ten Dam (Rabobank) was the first to put in an attack but was quickly reeled in by RadioShack-Nissan, who set things up for Schleck to attack and quickly build a lead of 30 seconds.
But Costa jumped clear from the chasing group of contenders late on, quickly closing the gap and passing the Luxembourg rider with less than 200m remaining.
Up for the fight
After the stage Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist talked us through the day’s action .
He said: “It was a really good performance from Thomas. The team had been working hard to set that one up. He was able to stay up there with the best which is promising for the GC and the rest of the race.
“It was a pretty straightforward day to begin with. A few riders went on the attack and Liquigas controlled things along with a few other teams. It was a fight for position on the lead-up to that.
“Unfortunately Michael punctured six kilometres from the bottom of the climb. Luke and Mat did a great to bring him back but he paid for that once he hit the bottom of the climb. Zandio hung on well too. Lars-Petter wasn’t feeling good today but he is coming back from illness and I expect he will get better during this race.
“Tomorrow there are a couple of climbs on the finishing circuit at the end but I think it will come down for a bunch sprint. We will be going for that with Swift. There are a lot of sprinters here so it should be a good fight.”
