2022 Tour de Suisse – Stage Seven – Highlights

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The wait this time was shorter. Barely two months after his last success at the Tour of the Alps, Thibaut Pinot took victory on the seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse, which ended at the top of Malbun, Liechtenstein. A member of the morning breakaway in the company of Lewis Askey, the French climber perfectly managed his effort on the final ascent before going to win alone.

“I had a complicated start to the week but I gained confidence on Friday when I saw that I was once again able to follow the leaders,” said Thibaut Pinot. “I then told myself that if I was in the breakaway today, there was a good chance that I could play for the victory. That was the goal since last night.” It was finally after about thirty kilometers that everything was unraveled. Lewis Askey accompanied a first shot, to which Thibaut Pinot was grafted in the foothills of the long ascent of the Lukmanierpass (29 km at 5%). “The breakaway was not easy to take. A lot of teams didn’t want me to go, so we had to force fate a little bit. Antoine really controlled the peloton to allow me to escape in the breakaway. It’s a team effort.”

“We had to do the forcing, that he goes to the pedal, confirmed Yvon Madiot. We also didn’t want him to be alone. The idea was to put a rider with him, and it turned out to be Lewis. He worked a lot for Thibaut in the first part of the race.”

It was in particular following a big relay of the Briton five kilometers from the top of the first pass that Thibaut Pinot went on the offensive. He was accompanied by Clément Berthet, and both took up to thirty seconds ahead before being seen again by part of the breakaway. At the end of the descent of the Lukmanierpass, it was a group of fourteen men who opened the road. The gap narrowed to five minutes in the long valley leading to the final ascent. “We quickly understood that the strategy of the peloton was to leave between three and four minutes ahead,” added Yvon. And so the difference was … 3’30, at the time of attacking the final climb to Malbun (12.6 km at 8.6%), in Liechtenstein. A gap potentially enough to play the victory, and the fight immediately started among the leading men, Ion Izagirre putting the horses from the foot. After a moment of delay, Thibaut Pinot caught the attackers and then found himself in pursuit with Alexey Lutsenko. The two men remained thirty seconds behind the Spaniard for a long time, before Pinot accelerated the pace five kilometers from the goal. After getting rid of the Kazakh, he caught and passed the Spaniard, easing to victory.

Thanks to an advantage of more than thirty seconds under the red flame, Thibaut Pinot was able to enjoy, in the last meters, his second success of the season. “I ride a bike to win,” he said after the finish. “I came to the Tour de Suisse for that, to experience this kind of stage. This victory means a lot. The Tour de Suisse remains for me one of the most beautiful races of the season. Winning here confirms all the work done since the beginning of the season. It’s also very good for the Tour de France, and it will allow me to arrive serene at the start.

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