Egan Bernal (Team INEOS) consolidated his grip on the yellow jersey at the Tour de Suisse and showed he is a contender for the Tour de France by climbing to victory in the seventh stage on Friday.
The Colombian finished 23 seconds clear at the end of the longest stage of the Swiss race, a 216.6km ride from Unterterzen to San Gottardo.
“My teammates did an exceptional job, it’s fantastic,” said Bernal.
Bernal was followed home by two Bahrain-Merida riders, Domenico Pozzovivo and Rohan Dennis who is second in the overall classification.
With just over two weeks to go before the start of the Tour de France, Bernal is positioning himself as one of the favourites for the race which recently lost two of its headliners: Chris Froome, who is also with Ineos, and Tom Dumoulin.
The group of leaders caught the last of Friday’s breakaways a little over five kilometres from the finish at the top of the Gotthard Pass.
Less than 3km from the line on the beyond category climb, Bernal accelerated clear and headed for victory alone.
With two stages left, Bernal is 41 seconds clear of Dennis in the overall standings. Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe), who was fourth on Friday, is third and the 1min 13sec behind.
The penultimate stage on Saturday is a 19.2 km time trial around Goms, before the race ends with a short (101.5 km) but rough final stage, with three beyond category climbs.
“Tomorrow, I will certainly lose time on the clock but there will be a mountain stage on Sunday, we will control that as much as we can. We’ll give it our best,” said Bernal.
Tour de Suisse 2019 – stage 7 results (Unterterzen – St. Gotthard):
| 1 | Egan Bernal (Team INEOS) | 5:37:40 |
| 2 | Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) | +23” |
| 3 | Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 4 | Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe) | +34” |
| 5 | Jan Hirt (Astana) | ,, |
| 6 | Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 7 | Enric Mas (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +40” |
| 8 | Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) | +50” |
| 9 | Lennard Kämna (Team Sunweb) | +01’03” |
| 10 | Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) | ,, |
Tour de Suisse 2019 – general classification after stage 7:
| 1 | Egan Bernal (Team INEOS) | 24:17:48 |
| 2 | Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) | +41” |
| 3 | Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe) | +01’13” |
| 4 | Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) | +01’17” |
| 5 | Jan Hirt (Astana) | +01’19” |
| 6 | Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 7 | Enric Mas (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +02’07” |
| 8 | Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) | +02’20” |
| 9 | Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) | +02’23” |
| 10 | Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) | +02’26” |
