Luis León Sanchez (Astana) pulled off an astonishing performance on stage 2 of Tour de Suisse as he attacked on the final 10 km and soloed to victory in Langnau im Emmental. Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) sprinted to second place, while Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-SCOTT) finished third on the stage. Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) is the new race leader.
On paper, Sunday’s stage looked like a good one for for a breakaway to make it but after a fast start, only four riders managed to get away. Claudio Imhof was one of them but already on the first climb, the Swiss rider decided to leave his breakaway companions and continue solo. Imhof built up a gap of over four minutes before the peloton started to react.
On the final two climbs, Astana set a furious pace in the pack. Sanchez himself did most of the work, setting up teammate Omar Fraile for an attack. Fraile tried to get away several times but ultimately, he was caught close the top of the final climb.
The likes of Sagan, Trentin and Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) were not far behind as the first group started on the descent and knowing so, many riders were eager to attack on the final flat part. However, despite several attempts, nobody succeeded in getting away.
With 10 km to go - just as the group with the sprinters were about to make contact - Sanchez put in his attack. Despite his hard effort earlier on the climbs, Sanchez still managed to find energy for a final push to the line. The chase group tried their best to reel him back in, but without success.
Sanchez took the win while Asgreen - who also had put in several attacks trying to get away - sprinted to fourth place and took over the race lead, in the same time as Sagan in second place. Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) is now third overall.
Here’s a look at some of the hard efforts from the riders during the stage, thanks to the VelonLive data: