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Porte wraps up Tour de Suisse title after closing time trial

Race's first leader Küng wins the chrono

June 17, 2018
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On Sunday Richie Porte (BMC) rolled the 82nd Tour de Suisse’s closing time trial to seal his first Tour de Suisse win and the first by an Australian since Phil Anderson in 1985. The first leader of the race, Stefan Küng (Switzerland/BMC), took the day’s flowers. Astana’s Jakob Fuglsang put in an amazing ride to grab a podium spot.

Porte has now won the Tour de Suisse, the Tour de Romandie, the Santos Tour Down Under, the Volta a Catalunya and Paris-Nice twice.

The Course

The 34-km route was a fairly flat one that took in a big lap around Bellinzona. The intermediate times were taken at the 9-km and 19.5-km marks.

Early Action

An early leader was Pole Maciej Bodnar of Bora-Hansgrohe, who stopped the clock at 40:10. He was ousted from the hot seat by Sunweb’s Dane Søren Kragh Andersen after a time of 40:03.

American Tejay Van Garderen was going great guns on the course and set the best intermediate time at the second check, but came up four-seconds short. However, Van Garderen and Porte’s Swiss teammate, Küng, eclipsed Anderson’s time with 39:44.

https://twitter.com/BMCProTeam/status/1008342835815501828

The Top 10

The gap between riders expanded from one minute to two as the race made its way into the top-10. Sixth place Fuglsang (Denmark/Astana) was having a strong ride. At the first checkpoint, Porte was 14-seconds faster than Quintana, as was third place Wilco Kelderman.

Kelderman had 35-seconds to make up on Quintana to stand on the second podium step, but Sunweb’s Dutchman had to worry about Fuglsang 36-seconds behind him.

In the end, Porte didn’t need to finish in the top-10. He beat runner-up Fuglsang by 1:02. Quintana held on to the podium.


2018 Tour de Suisse Stage 9
1) Stefan Küng (Switzerland/BMC Racing Team) 39:44
2) Søren Kragh Andersen (Denmark/Sunweb) +0:19
3) Tejay Van Garderen (USA/BMC) +0:23

2018 Tour de Suisse Final GC
1) Richie Porte (Australia/BMC) 29:28:05
2) Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark/Astana) +1:02
3) Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Movistar) +1:12
4) Enric Mas (Spain/Quick Step) +1:20
5) Wilco Kelderman (The Netherlands/Sunweb) +1:21
6) Simon Spilak (Slovenia/Katusha) +1:47
7) Sam Oomen (The Netherlands/Sunweb) +1:52
8) Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) +1:59
9) Diego Ulissi (Italy/UAE-Emirates) +2:27
10) Arthur Vichot (France/Groupama-FDJ) +2:41