Richie Porte (BMC) took the race leader’s yellow jersey off teammate Stefan Kung’s back as Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) won Wednesday’s fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse.
Home favourite Kung suffered over the final few kilometres of the 155km stage from Gstaad to Leukerbad which featured three climbs.
Ulissi out-sprinted Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors) and Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data) to take the stage victory.
In his final race before July’s tour de France, Porte now sits atop the overall standings 20sec ahead of Sunweb’s riders Wilco Kelderman and Sam Oomen.
“I am just happy to be back racing and to have good form. It wasn’t a simple day but this jersey is all credit to my team today,” Porte said.
“The team was absolutely superb. They were fantastic all day. It was a hectic start and we covered the first 100km super quick and I don’t think it was an easy day for anyone.
“It may not have looked really hard in the final there but we went hard. All of the guys did their part today and I am so happy to have the jersey and keep it in the team.”
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) is in sixth, at just 33sec, while Katusha’s Simon Spilak, twice a winner (2015, 2017), is ninth (+46sec).
Thursday’s stage throws up the chance for the climbers in the field to make up some valuable time as the 186km ride features two feared climbs, to the top of Furka and Klausen.
There is a thigh-trembling total of 3,300 metres of climbing, with the toughest climb coming just 50km from the finish in Gommiswald.
Tour de Suisse 2018 – stage 5 results (Gstaad – Leukerbad):
| 1 | Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) | 3:37:31 |
| 2 | Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 3 | Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 4 | Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 5 | Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 6 | Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) | ,, |
| 7 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) | ,, |
| 8 | Richie Porte (BMC) | ,, |
| 9 | Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 10 | Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
General classification after stage 5:
| 1 | Richie Porte (BMC) | 17:03:53 |
| 2 | Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) | +20” |
| 3 | Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 4 | Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors) | +21” |
| 5 | Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) | +29” |
| 6 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) | +33” |
| 7 | Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) | +36” |
| 8 | Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) | +40” |
| 9 | Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) | +46” |
| 10 | Mikel Landa (Movistar) | +47” |
