Tour de Suisse Stage 5: Borut Bozic grabs stage from Oscar Freire

Borut Bozic of Vacansoleil-DCEM overhauled Rabobank's Oscar Freire on the line to take Stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse on a day when, as yesterday, a kick up towards the finish again caused problems for the pure sprinters. Peter Sagan of Liquigas Cannondale continued his terrific week, finishing third. Damiano Cunego of Lampre-ISD retains the overall lead.

Today’s stage 204 kilometre stage from Huttwill to Tobel-Tägerschen had appeared to present a more realistic opportunity of a bunch finish involving the out-and-out sprinters than yesterday’s Stage 4, won by world champion Thor Hushovd.

Once again, however, the finale was anything but flat, the closing 2 kilometres had an average gradient of 2%, but with the road undulating during that final approach to the line, in places it was higher.

Earlier, the riders had negotiated four minor categorised climbs, allowing a break to form and get away, but with the sprinters itching to get down to business, it wasn’t going to be allowed to get away and the last riders were swept up 13 kilometres out.

Unusually, Euskaltel-Euskadi had been most prominent in forcing the pace at the front of the peloton when the catch was made, and their rider Alan Perez subsequently attacked and build a gap over the chasing bunch.

He was never going to be allowed to stay away, however, the peloton roaring past as it went under the 5 kilometre to go banner, HTC-Highroad now working at the front for Mark Cavendish, who seemed to be heading for a long-awaited showdown with his former team mate Andre Greipel, now with Omega Pharma-Lotto.

Team Sky, too came to the front with a five-man train including Greg Henderson and Ben Swift, both of whom would have fancied their chances, but suddenly they and HTC were swarmed by riders from other teams as the gradient started to rise.

Tom Boonen of Quickstep went on the attack around a kilometre out, but was caught with 500 metres to go, Marco Marcato of Vacansoleil-DCM attacking and seeming to have perhaps done enough to win before fading in the closing 100 metres as his team mate Bozic came through to claim the victory.

Tour de Suisse Stage 5 Result 
1  BOZIC Borut           VACANSOLEIL-DCM         04:44:48
2  FREIRE Oscar          RABOBANK            All at same time
3  SAGAN Peter           LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE
4  VAN GARDEREN Tejay    HTC-HIGHROAD
5  ROJAS Jose Joaquin    MOVISTAR
6  MARCATO Marco         VACANSOLEIL-DCM
7  RAVARD Anthony        AG2R LA MONDIALE
8  GERDEMANN Linus       LEOPARD TREK
9  VAN AVERMAET Greg     BMC RACING
10 SWIFT Ben             SKY PROCYCLING
11 ROBERTS Luke          SAXO BANK SUNGARD
12 MEGIAS Javier         TEAM TYPE 1-SANOFI AVENTIS
13 KANGERT Tanel         ASTANA
14 DEVENYNS Dries        QUICKSTEP
15 MONFORT Maxime        LEOPARD TREK
16 FERNANDEZ Koldo       EUSKALTEL-EUSKADI
17 CUNEGO Damiano        LAMPRE - ISD
18 SOLER Juan Mauricio   MOVISTAR
19 KRUIJSWIJK Steven     RABOBANK
20 LEIPHEIMER Levi       RADIOSHACK

Tour de Suisse Overall Standings after Stage  5 
1  CUNEGO Damiano        LAMPRE - ISD            17:14:11
2  SOLER Juan Mauricio   MOVISTAR                   +0:54
3  MOLLEMA Bauke         RABOBANK                   +1:16
4  TEN DAM Laurens       RABOBANK                   +1:19
5  VAN GARDEREN Tejay    HTC-HIGHROAD               +1:21
6  SCHLECK Frank         LEOPARD TREK               +1:25
7  FUGLSANG Jakob        LEOPARD TREK               +1:32
8  DI LUCA Danilo        KATUSHA TEAM               +1:53
9  KRUIJSWIJK Steven     RABOBANK                   +2:00
10 LEIPHEIMER Levi       RADIOSHACK                 +2:10

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