Tour de Suisse Stage 8 results

A remarkable day of racing today which saw Jaroslaw Marycz, Luca Paolini, Jan Barta and Francisco Ventoso mount an early challenge when, just a few kilometres into the route (right where we predicted it, incidentally), they broke away from the pack in the pouring rain and kept the pace almost to the end of the day. The peloton kept trying to reel them back in and although they did eventually manage to do, it took a lot of time. Barta came off at one point and was incredibly lucky not to hit a metal crown barrier, working heroically to catch up afterwards. It wasn't long though until he'd given all he had to give and the breakaway group divided into two when Ventoso fell back with him, leaving Marycz and Paolini to lead all the way to the Category 3 climb at Haullerberg.

Ben Swift was born on the 5th of Nove-
mber and rides like he's got a firework
up his downtube (if you know what we
mean). Give him three years and he's
going to be world-class.

HTC-Highroad and Team Sky moved up to the front at this point, looking purposeful and like they had plans to hand out some pain. In the end, it was Sky who proved they can really dish it out: HTC ended without a single rider in the top ten, even Cavendish whom the stage seemed to suit so well, whereas the British team managed two - namely 3rd place Ben Swift who, aged 23, is emerging as Britain's next hero and Essex boy Ian Stannard in 8th. We said this morning that we hoped to see Swift in the top ten but doubted it would happen - we're seriously impressed with what he did today and we hope he is too.

Andy Schleck, winner of the King of the Mountains title yesterday, showed what he can do and why barring mechanical problems he'll be on the Parisian podium next month. He was first up Haullerberg and so gets to keep the jersey. With a total 42 points picked up in the climbs, he's seven points ahead of Laurens ten Dam in the climber's competition and with tomorrow's stage being a time trial the jersey's his for good.

Peter Sagan won the stage, his second in this Tour, which puts him way out in front as far as the points contest is concerned - he has a 36 point lead on second place Jose Joaquin Rojas who was declared fifth place by his Movistar team of Twitter but in fact took sixth. Matthew Harley Goss took the second position, Koldo Fernandez fourth and Thor Hushovd fifth - the Norwegian looked set for a higher place but seemed to have trouble holding his position in the jostle for the finish line. Luckily, it dried up after a soaking start and the rain forecast for this afternoon in Schaffhausen never materialised so the road was dry and not slippery, other we might well have seen a pile-up with just metres to go.

Results in full:


Stage 8

1 Peter Sagan

2 Matthew Harley Goss

3  Ben Swift

4 Koldo Fernandez

5 Thor Hushovd

6 Jose Joaquin Rojas

7 Gerald Ciolek

8 Ian Stannard

9 Simon Clarke

10 Tejay Van Garderen

Overall and other results available at the Tour de Suisse website.