Thomas before overall victory at Tour de Suisse

BWith so much dominance, there is even time to play. In the final of the 4th stage of the Tour of Slovenia, Tadej Pogačar and his teammate Rafal Majka drew the winner – in a duel “rock, paper, scissors”. The two-time winner of the Tour de France lost and generously let his noble helper win. It was the second time that the young Slovenian gave way to the Pole on his home tour. And he said politely: “I am very happy about this victory and would like to thank Tadej and the entire team. Tadej told me that I can win the stage. These successes are really good for us ahead of the tour.”

Pogačar, on the other hand, is further ahead in the overall standings. Before the final stage, he has a three-second lead over his teammate, the former pro of the German Bora team. Domen Novak (Bahrain-Victorious) is third with a clear gap of 1:56 minutes.

Majka, who also won the first stage, leads in the points and mountains classification. Pogačar himself triumphed on the third stage in Celje.

Geraint Thomas before victory at the Tour de Suisse

Former Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas is about to win the Tour de Suisse for the first time. The Brit had to cede the yellow jersey to the Colombian Sergio Higuita from the German Bora-hansgrohe team on Saturday’s mountain stage over 194.6 kilometers from Ambri to Malbun, but as a strong time trialist he is likely to be two seconds behind in the final fight against the clock easily make up for it on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the seventh stage was won by French cycling star Thibaut Pinot ahead of Spaniard Oscar Rodriguez and Kazakh Alexej Luzenko. In fourth, Higuita gained eleven seconds on Thomas, while the previous overall leader Jakob Fuglsang lost important seconds and the jersey in seventh. The Dane is now 19 seconds back overall third. On Sunday there will be an individual time trial over 25.6 kilometers in Vaduz.

40 failures due to summer wave

The Bora team meanwhile lost the third driver because of a positive corona test. The tour was over for the Austrian Marco Haller, after the Russian Alexander Wlassow and the German Anton Palzer had previously been caught. In total, more than 40 riders have already had to end the Tour de Suisse due to the Corona summer wave.