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Hugo Houle sixth on sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse

Woods up to sixth before Saturday's time trial

Photo by: Sirotti
June 11, 2021
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Hugo Houle had his best result of the season on Friday’s sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse, placing sixth. The GC competition took a day off on Friday, as a giant breakaway wrote the story and Andreas Kron (Denmark/Lotto-Soudal) took the stage honours after Rui Costa was relegated for deviating from his sprint line. Houle was one of three Canadians in a 40-strong fugitive group. Richard Carapaz retained the race lead before Saturday’s time trial showdown.

You can watch the 84th Tour de Suisse here.

The Course

Friday’s route was similar to Thursday’s: a Cat. 1 right out of the gate, a Cat. 1 near the finish and a moderate climb to the line. However, Friday was all up and down–a 54-km descent of the first climb led to a 55-km ascent to the top of the second–and packed into 130 km.

Four BikeExchange riders and double-stage winner and one-time race leader Mathieu van der Poel didn’t start Friday. BikeExchange was ravaged by gastroenteritis. Michael Woods was one of many riders who moved up one place due to Lucas Hamilton dropping out.

On his 29th birthday, Julian Alaphilippe lit out for glory on the first climb, the Gotthardpass. One of the three riders with him, Antonio Nibali (Italy/Trek-Segafredo), pinched the maximum KOM points and assumed the mountains classification lead.

The Alaphilippe quartet started the 54-km descent just ahead of a sextet of chasers, half of whom were UAE-Emirates riders. By the time it reached the bottom of the “trough” between the two “waves”, its gap was 55 seconds. Now for the little matter of a 55-km ascent (officially the Lukmanierpass is 18 km in length).

The chasing sextet had long been absorbed, but as the road tilted up an enormous new chase group formed. It was a fluid situation, and soon James Piccoli, Rob Britton and Houle were part of a colossal breakaway of 42-riders, with Alaphilippe returning to the yellow jersey peloton to give the break a chance.

Before the Lekmanierpass proper the break started to fragment. David de la Cruz (Spain/UAE-Emirates) soloed off the front. De la Cruz, twice seventh in the Vuelta a España, crested the Cat. 1 over a minute ahead of a 11-man chase.

It didn’t look good for de la Cruz before the final climb. His gap had shrunk while the chase numbers had grown. Austrian Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain-Victorious) brought de la Cruz’s teammate Rui Costa over with 6.2 km to ride. De la Cruz couldn’t hang with them, but Lotto-Soudal’s Andreas Kron joined up.

The trio’s closest pursuers were five riders including Houle.

Pernsteiner tried to bounce away at the 2 km to go mark but he ended up contesting a three-up sprint. Kron complained about being taken into the barrier by Costa, but it seemed that the Portuguese left room for the Dane. However, over twenty minutes later the judges awarded the stage to Kron.

Saturday’s time trial has a 9.5-km Cat. 1 climb that begins almost immediately after the start in Disentis Sedrun.

2021 Tour de Suisse Stage 6
1) Andreas Kron (Denmark/Lotto-Soudal) 3:14:52
2) Rui Costa (Portugal/UAE-Emirates) s.t.
3) Hermann Pernsteiner (Austria/Bahrain-Victorious) +0:01
6) Hugo Houle (Canada/Astana-Premier Tech) +0:03

2021 Tour de Suisse GC
1) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) 20:00:31
2) Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark/Astana-Premier Tech) +0:26
3) Max Schachmann (Germany/Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:38
6) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +1:32