The 72nd Tour de Suisse took place from June 14th to June 22nd, 2008.
The cycle stage race consisted of a total of nine stages, including an individual time trial . The race was part of the UCI ProTour 2008 racing series . The tour started in Langnau in the Emmental and ended in Bern .
Participating teams
All 18 UCI Protour and 2 UCI Professional Continental teams took part in the 2008 Tour de Suisse. Team Volksbank and BMC received the wildcards.
Last year's winner, Vladimir Karpez , decided not to participate due to a broken hand. The Paris – Roubaix 2008 winner Tom Boonen was banned from the organizers after testing positive for cocaine in the run-up to the Tour de Suisse. The leader of the UCI Protour 2008 Damiano Cunego , however, was at the start.
Stages
Overview
1st stage: Langnau im Emmental – Langnau im Emmental
The first stage led with a flat profile around Langnau in the Emmental. David Loosli , Steve Zampieri and Iñigo Landaluze formed the breakaway group. Loosli won both intermediate sprints and both mountain classifications (both third category). The last mountain, the Chuderhüsi, was too steep for most sprinters. Nevertheless, the peloton caught the breakaway shortly before the finish. Óscar Freire decided the mass sprint.
2nd stage: Langnau im Emmental – Flums
The final of the second stage led up to the Flumserberg (first category). In between there were two other ways to collect mountain points. These were mainly won by David Loosli and Martin Elmiger . Loosli defended the lead in the sprint and mountain classification . Stijn Devolder sought the decision in the stage finals too early. He was caught up and only finished seventh. Igor Antón won.
3rd stage: Flums – Gossau
The escape group of the day consisted of Hervé Duclos-Lassalle (Cofidis) and René Weissinger (Volksbank), after ten kilometers Jeff Louder (BMC Racing) caught up. In the meantime, their lead grew to up to 7 minutes and 30 seconds. Weissinger won both intermediate sprints and got the sprint jersey. The outliers were posted ten kilometers from the finish. The last mountain classification in the 4th category was won by David Loosli (Lampre). After good preparation by Greg Van Avermaet, Robbie McEwen won the mass sprint ahead of Óscar Freire.
4th stage: Gossau – Domat / Ems
The fourth stage also offered a good opportunity for a mass sprint. There were only two mountain ratings in the third category ( Schellenberg and Sankt-Luzisteig ). The escape group consisted of Matej Jurčo , Jérôme Pineau and Jonathan Garcia . Pineau won the mountain classifications and Jurčo the intermediate sprints. Like the day before, the first three were called McEwen, Freire and Ciolek.
5th stage: Domat / Ems – Caslano
The 190-kilometer stage started in Domat / Ems in the canton of Graubünden. The course of the Vorderrhein was followed to Disentis. The first mountain classification (3rd category) took place in Flims at kilometer 14. The journey then went south to the Lukmanier Pass (1st category, 1940 meters high) at 70 km. The descent led to Biasca in the canton of Ticino. The last fifty kilometers was followed by the summit of Monte Ceneri (3rd category), an ascent in Cademario (2nd category), 16 kilometers from the finish. The descent led to the destination Caslano .
After the first mountain classification, a dozen drivers were able to break away from the field: Pietro Caucchioli (Crédit Agricole), Pieter Jacobs (Silence-Lotto), Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), Maxim Iglinski (Astana), Marco Marzano (Lampre), Mathieu Perget (Caisse) d'Epargne), Morris Possoni (Team High Road), José Rujano (Caisse d'Epargne), Johann Tschopp (Bouygues Telecom), Alessandro Vanotti (Liquigas), Benoît Vaugrenard (La Française des Jeux) and Giovanni Visconti (Quick · Step ), Jens Voigt (Team CSC). After an unsuccessful attack by Chavanel on Monte Ceneri, the whole group was overtaken by the peloton 25 kilometers from the finish.
There were further attacks up to Cademario. Stijn Devolder (Quick Step) and Sergej Iwanow (Astana) pulled away, but the group of leader Igor Antón followed suit. At the end of the climb, Fränk Schleck (Team CSC) attacked, followed by Markus Fothen (Gerolsteiner). On the descent, Fothen caught up with Schleck, who fell four kilometers from the finish. Fothen won the stage in Caslano, Schleck crossed the finish line almost 3 minutes behind in 44th place.
Sergei Ivanov attacked again and finished second. Igor Antón's group, consisting of 17 drivers, crossed the finish line 57 seconds behind. Damiano Cunego lost almost a minute on Antón.
6th stage Quinto – Verbier
The group of outliers was large. In her drivers like José Rujano , Giovanni Visconti , Maxim Iglinski and Jens Voigt . In the last climb, all drivers were caught up again. In the sprint, Kim Kirchen was the strongest ahead of Andreas Klöden. Antón lost half a minute, Kirchen took the yellow jersey.
7th stage: Gruyères – Lyss
After two groups tried in vain to break away from the main field, a group of four drivers formed: Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas), Sébastien Rosseler (Quick · Step), Ronny Scholz (Gerolsteiner) and Johan Vansummeren (Silence-Lotto). Kreuziger, second in the overall standings, dropped back after a few kilometers because the field did not let the outliers get away decisively. The three drivers drove up to 17 kilometers before the finish in front of the field.
Shortly before the last hill, Leif Hoste (Silence-Lotto), Maxim Iglinski (Astana) and David Loosli (Lampre) attacked, followed by Fabian Cancellara and Markus Fothen , and later Philippe Gilbert and Kim Kirchen . But Cancellara attacked again and was able to break away from his companions. These were placed on the last five kilometers from the main field. Cancellara drove single-handedly to Lyss and won two seconds ahead of the peloton, led by Erik Zabel and Robbie McEwen .
8th stage: Altdorf – Klausenpass (BZF)
Stijn Devolder had a black day and lost more than 6 minutes to Kreuziger, who took over the yellow jersey from Kim Kirchen with his stage win .
9th stage: Altdorf – Bern
The last stage offered a fairly flat profile with a mountain classification in the fourth category around 10 kilometers from the finish. The chance for the winner of the seventh stage, Fabian Cancellara, to win in his native Bern. The early escape group with Hervé Duclos-Lassalle (Cofidis), Darren Lill (BMC Racing), Francisco Pérez Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne), Maarten Tjallingii (Silence-Lotto) and René Weissinger (Volksbank) was placed shortly before the last summit.
Silence Lotto led the field. With 1,500 meters to go, Philippe Gilbert tried his luck, only Cancellara was able to pursue and narrowly won. Since the leader of the points classification, Freire, did not start the last stage, Cancellara secured the points jersey. There were no changes in the overall ranking: the young Czech Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) achieved the first major success of his career.
Jerseys in the course of the tour
The table shows the wearer of the respective jersey during the individual stage or the leaders of the respective overall ranking on the evening of the previous day.
- During the second stage, Martin Elmiger wore the points jersey.
- During the third stage, Martin Elmiger wore the sprint jersey.
ProTour intermediate result
Intermediate status of the ProTour 2008 after the Tour de Suisse (as of June 22, 2008).
Web links
Yellow jersey
Óscar Freire
Robbie McEwen
Markus Fothen
Kim churches
Fabian Cancellara
Roman Kreuziger
Greg Van Avermaet
Damiano Cunego
Leonardo Duque
Sergei Ivanov
Thomas Lövkvist
Jose Rujano
Thomas Dekker
Team CSC
Française des Jeux
Team High Road
