Eritrean Biniam Girmay won the first stage of the Tour de Suisse in a massive sprint on Monday after 173 km between Beromünster and Nottwil, while Swiss Stefan Küng retained the yellow jersey for five seconds.
Cleverly, the sprinter from Intermarché-Circus-Wanty slipped into the opening left by Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), who left too early, to beat the Frenchman Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), who was nevertheless well led by Küng in the last kilometers.
At 23, Girmay offers his second success in a Grand Tour after winning the tenth stage of the Giro last year, and takes advantage of one of the rare opportunities left to sprinters by the Swiss event, on a hilly route ( 1,890 m of elevation) but whose last difficulty was placed 23 km from the finish.
“I surprised myself,” said the winner of Ghent-Wevelgem 2022, who had fallen violently in April during the Tour of Flanders and could hardly train in the spring, while his burns healed.
In the general classification, Küng saves his leading position acquired on Sunday in the prologue with a five-second lead over Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), who grabbed a bonus second in the second intermediate sprint, and six over Van Aert, which took up four seconds in the final sprint.
The two Belgian prodigies should continue their explanation on Tuesday in the first mountain stage, with an uphill finish in the Vaudois Alps, after 144 km between Tafers and Villars-sur-Ollon.
The Tour de Suisse allows Evenepoel to return to the circuit a month after having had to throw in the towel in the Giro, exhausted and contaminated with Covid-19 while wearing the leader’s pink jersey, while Van Aert takes benchmarks before the Tour de France.
On the French side, Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) and Alexis Renard (Covidis) are in 19th and 20th place respectively overall, 35 seconds behind Küng, while Romain Bardet (DSM) limited the damage during the flat prologue and accused 39 seconds behind, in 25th place, before tackling the mountain.
