Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) powered to his first victory of the season on stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse, jumping away from Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny) in the final 150 metres as the Belgian suffered the most untimely mechanical when starting his sprint.
Coquard was quiet throughout the day, as were his Cofidis teammates, sticking in the wheels until the very best moment after latching onto De Lie’s last lead-out man and outlasting the charge from Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla) in second and De Lie after he got going again.
De Lie was the heavy favourite coming into the day and looked set to take the win after his Lotto Dstny team reeled in a late attack from Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) with 1.2km to go, but dropping his chain in the final sprint left him banging the handlebars across the line as he settled for third.
Coquard was yet to win in 2024 despite a whole host of top-five finishes and the win in Regensdorf was his first at WorldTour level since January of last year when he took a stage at the Tour Down Under.
Yves Lampaert (Soudal Quick-Step) held onto the leader’s yellow jersey after his stage 1 victory, coming home safely just behind the bunch sprint despite some splits forming over the crest of the final climb.
"It's my biggest victory today," said a delighted Coquard post-race. "It's a difficult stage with a hard climb just before the final. Today we knew with the team it was a good opportunity for me.
"I'm a good sprinter but with the big guys it's more difficult for me and today was a perfect opportunity. We arrived with a little bunch and I did a perfect final with a perfect sprint."
Coquard will head to next month's Tour with the aim of fulfilling his career goal of a stage win at the Tour de France, even referencing the closest he has come in the past during an uphill battle to the line with Marcel Kittel in 2016.
"A lot of times I finished second in Tour de France for example, 28mm with Marcel Kittel in Limoges," said Coquard when asked why today was his biggest triumph. "I'm really happy because I went to an altitude training camp for three weeks in preparation for the Tour de France and I won today, it's perfect."
How it unfolded
The longest stage of the 2024 Tour de Suisse kicked off again from Vaduz in Liechtenstein, with 176.9km in the way of a potential chance for the sprinters.
A five-man breakaway formed after an initial attack by Gerben Kuypers (Intermarché-Wanty), Roberto Carlos González (Team Corratec-Vini Fantini) and Félix Stehli (Swiss Cycling) before they were bridged across to by Antoine Debons (Team Corratec - Vini Fantini) and Luca Jenni (Swiss Cycling).
After the short stage 1 individual time trial, Jenni was the closest on GC at 24 seconds and went into the virtual lead as the break built an advantage over the four-minute mark in the opening 50km.
González dropped over the second categorised climb of the day to Ricken (6.1 km at 5.9%) and he was swallowed up with 65km to go, leaving a quartet at the head of the race with a 4:40 advantage to defend.
Alpecin-Deceuninck and Soudal Quick-Step took up the mantle of pacing on the front around the 60km to-go mark and the deficit started to melt down, reduced by a minute just 10km later.
As the break toiled away in front, mopping up all of the KOM points, intermediate sprints and Tissot bonus second, more teams came to the front - Tudor, Jayco AlUla, EF Education-EasyPost - as the bunch began eyeing up the final climb.
With 25km to go, the pace was heating up and the gap was down to around one minute, causing Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) to drop and fight to get back on as he looks to get some climbing in the legs ahead of the Tour de France.
GC teams began moving up in the kilometres preceding the Regensburg Cat.3 climb but there wasn't too much urgency in the pace with the gap stabilising around 1:14. This was made worse by a small crash in the peloton going through narrow, technical roads and a lot of road furniture making it hard to carry speed through the corners.
Jenni took off from the four-man break as they hit the 3.5km climb which averaged a 5.7% gradient with a 50-second advantage in hand. Behind, EF picked up the tempo on the climb with 13km to go to ensure Marijn van den Berg had an opportunity to fight for victory.
Q36.5 went on the attack with David de la Cruz after no team took up full authority on the lower slopes of the climb. But this prompted Alpecin to get back into gear and really light up the inclines to put the pure sprinters in pain.
De la Cruz and Jenni were quickly reeled in with 11km to go with this new injection of pace and from then on in, Alpecin continued their effort with splits forming all down the climb after the crest.
Søren Kragh Andersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took off on the descent with Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) as those behind fought to get back on. However, they were quickly pulled back once the road flattened out again, giving Bettiol the chance to launch an opportunistic move.
It looked like the Italian had a chance of making it to the line with only splintered groups trying to chase him down. That was until Lotto Dstny came to the fore alongside Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale with De Lie sat in ready to sprint and he was done just before reaching the flamme rouge.
The Belgian squad got the technical run into Regensdorf just right, navigating the multiple 90-degree corners with De Lie still in third wheel. However, the talented young sprinter couldn't finish the job as he dropped his chain, allowing Coquard to get a gap and sprint to victory.
Results
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