The uphill finish from 500 m to go suited the talents of Alexander Kristoff and the 27-year old Norwegian made good on the work done by his Team Katusha to finish off with the victory. The win marked the 18th of the 2015 season for Alexander Kristoff and his second career victory in the Swiss race.
- Everything was there for me to win today, but you still need the legs to finish it off and I’m happy I had them today. I’ve won a stage here before and it was also uphill. I have very good memories of my first win here and today was quite similar to that. I’m happy to win here again, - said stage winner Alexander Kristoff.
The difficult uphill sprint was a close one for Kristoff with Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) chasing by half a bike length for second place. Third place belonged to Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) with the first riders all on the same time of 3:38.07.
The overall general classification still has Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) in the lead by 37-seconds to Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) with Team Katusha’s Simon Špilak currently in fourth place at 50-seconds.
At 165 km, stage 7 began in Biel and ended in Düdingen. A breakaway of four riders included current world champion Michal Kwiatkowski who was only brought back in the last kilometer.
- It was a hard day and I haven’t felt super so far in this race. The team did a really great job to bring me to the front. If it had not been for them I never would have won because my legs were not super today. I just managed to hold Sagan off there at the end so I’m super happy. He was coming fast there at the end but I managed to answer his run. I felt like I had it but it was still far to the finish line on the slight uphill so I was pretty tired when I crossed the line. Yesterday’s finish was very technical and I didn’t really have the legs but today I felt better and the team just did such a good job. I was very happy how they worked at the end and how I managed to finish it off. The last kilometers were very hard and we had some difficulties bringing back the break but we could see them just ahead of us, so I felt confident we could bring them back, - said Alexander Kristoff.
The victory chalks up the 28th for Team Katusha in the current season.
The final two stages this weekend are in Bern. Stage 8’s road stage on Saturday is 152,5 km while the final stage on Sunday is an individual time trial at 38,4 km.
Photo credit: (c) Tim De Waele
