Rui Costa takes the honour place

Another second place for Rui Costa, after the three got at the recent Giro d’Italia, at the Tour de Suisse during the real first mountain stage of this edition. The stage 6 enrolled from Locarno to La Punt after 166.7 km with the last HC climb of Albulapass with just 9,3 km to go.

During the last ascent there was a hard rhythm and a huge selection between the GC contenders. Rui Costa was one of the best but the Italian rider Domenico Pozzovivo attacked in the final kms of the climb and he was able to maintain it and to get the victory under the rain.

Domenico Pozzovivo is also the new leader with the same overall time as Damiano Caruso (BMC). Rui Costa moves to the seventh GC place with a gap of 54” from the leader.

“Despite the really hard climb of the last mountain I was able to stay with the best GC riders” said Rui Costa “the final in descent was quite dangerous due to the heavy rain and we pushed to the limit trying to catch back Pozzovivo. We can’t but I got a good second place. It was important to play an important role to win the stage and to get a better overall ranking possible. Now we have others possibility. We’ll see”.

Tomorrow there will be another uphill-finish, the Zernez – Solden of 160.8 km.

Results:

1 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 4:38:49

2 Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates +4’’

3 Jon Izaguirre (Spa) Bahrain-Merida s.t.

General Classification after stage 6

1 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 22:03:28

2 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing Team s.t.

3 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo +13’’

7 Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates +54’’

10 Valerio Conti (Ita) UAE Team Emirates 3’02’’