25.06.2006 Burden - Burden (141 km)
1-2-3 for the riders of ACC Contern
Results:
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Kim Kirchen
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winner
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2nd at 0"
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3rd at 4"
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Like in the previous year, the riders of ACC Contern manage to take the complete podium in the National road-race championships with Kim Kirchen, Frank Schleck and Andy Schleck in this order. Kirchen is the one who makes it all clear on the last climb towards the finish, a few seconds in front of the Schleck brothers. But before this, the really bad weather conditions failed to cancel the race, with ligthtning, rain and hail that go down onto the riders shortly before mid-race. At this moment, the Best are already at the front, because Frank and Andy Schleck are making the race tough. After their accelerations on the first lap already, 10 contestants break away at the front: the 4 professionnal riders, 2 times Schleck, Kirchen and Joachim are in company of Christian Poos (Cessange), Pascal Triebel (Tétange), Vicenzo Centrone and Robert Schmitt (Differdange), Claude Wolter (Kayl) as well as Ben Gastauer (Schifflange). After two laps in the storm,
just enough for Schmitt and Wolter to be dropped, the jury decides to shorten the race, in order to avoid any danger for the riders. Eventually, there are only two difficulties left to bring the decision and Frank Schleck is the first to react. He makes the speed on the climb up to Burden and the leading group explodes: only brother Andy and Kim Kirchen are able to hold his wheel. With exceptionnal courage, the defending champion animates the race, despite a broken nose and several bruises and stitches in his face as a result of a training accident two days ago. But Benoît Joachim isn't far behind, together with the young and strong Ben Ben Gastauer, and the three riders of ACC Contern have to keep their forces united in order to hold the chasers at distance. But on the last climb, they find themselves on their own, two against one for the victory. One after the other, the Schleck brothers attack, but Kirchen is strong and reacts each time, before attacking himself. Kim takes fifty meters of advance and this is too much for Andy Schleck who has to let his two elder opponents go. But Frank doesn't give up, despite the pain on his face, and meter by meter, he closes down the gap to Kim Kirchen, who is caught by the CSC-rider just as the last kilometers begin. The decision is to take place in a sprint, and on the uphill finishing straight, Kirchen shows all his explosive power to win with several length of advance on Frank and Andy Schleck. Benôit Joachim finshes fourth in front of Ben Gastauer, who takes the title in the U23 category, whereas the ever young Pascal Triebel takes the tri-colour jersey in the category elite without contract.
18.06.2006 9: Kerzers - Bern (31 km ITT)
Jan Ullrich wins despite rain and thunder
Results:
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Jan Ullrich
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33rd at 2'30"
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45th at 41'35"
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11th at 1'24"
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6th at 2'56"
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7th at 1'01"
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12th at 5'18"
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Jan Ullrich hasn't deceived in the final time-trial of the Tour de Suisse by taking the stage victory with 23" advantage on Cadel Evans and, at the same time, assuring the overall victory because Koldo Gil loses 1'14" and Jörg Jaksche 1'22" on the German. In the final overall classification, Ullrich wins with 24 seconds advance on Gil and 1'03" on Jaksche 3rd. The T-Mobile rider is very impressive in his favourite discipline, riding at more than 47 km/h under rain and heavy wind. Kim Kirchen is also impressive. Just like Frank Schleck, he has to ride under the bad weather conditions, but keeps nevertheless his speed up at 46,5 km/h to finish off 7th in the stage classification, only one minute and one second behind his team leader. In the overall classification, Kim loses one position in favour of today's runner-up Cadel Evans and finishes 12th. This Tour de Suisse brings him the confirmation that his form is coming back and, without Tour de France, should motivate him for the second half of the season where he can hopefully have more freedom inside his team than in Helvetica. Frank Schleck also does a nice performance in the time-trial, he uses 23 seconds more than Kim Kirchen which brings him an 11th place. On a very selective course with two climbs, the CSC rider drives at nearly 46 km/h and finishes in between the two time-trial specilists that have not fullfiled their expectations today, Jörg Jaksche (10th) and Fabian Cancellara (12th). He also looses one place overall to the young slovenian revelation from Discovery, Janez Brajkovic. But even if his result is a little bit disappointing in comparison with last year, he has the confirmation that he is on the right track for his major goal of this season, the Tour de France. Mission accomplished also for the national time-trial champ Andy Schleck, who finishes at 44,6 km/h average speed in 33rd position, two minutes and a half down on Jan Ullrich and he moves up three places overall to the 45th position. For Andy, the most important thing in this Tour de Suisse surely was to show that he can stay up with the best in the mountains, which he did brillanty in the last mountain stage in Ambri.
17.06.2006 8: Ambri - Ambri (166 km)
Contador wins stage, statu quo overall
Results:
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Alberto Contador
Koldo Gil
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19th at 41"
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48th at 39'54"
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10th at 37"
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5th at 2'22"
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16th at 41"
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11th at 5'07"
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Once more a difficult stage with the climbs of Lukmanier, Oberalb and Gotthard before a fast downhill to the finish line. There is a lot of action with a group of 28 riders containing among others Klöden, Sinkewitz, Bernucci, Vandevelde, Fothen or Canada that breaks away from the beginning. But the group is to big and the peloton chases it down again. Shortly after, more riders attack on the foot of the Lukmanier and 8 riders get a gap at the front, with Garzelli and Contador being the most popular among them. They pass together over the Oberalppass with 2 minutes of advance, but then, on the Gotthard-climb, Alberto Contador estimates the pace is too slow, he accelerates and drops the other riders. The Spaniard gets over the top of the Gotthard with still a minute of gap to the next chasers, enough to avoid any risks on the downhill and finish alone in Ambri for the stage victory. Behind him, the battle for the overall classification takes place, but T-Mobile locks the race. Kim Kirchen, together with Gerdemann and Guerini, sets an impressive pace on the climb to anticipate any move of Koldo Gil. And this tactics pay, because the overall leader attacks on the Gotthard, 2 km from the summit, but it is already too late and he insn't fresh enough any more to drop his biggest opponents Jacksche, Ullrich or Schleck. Frank Schleck is once again with the best on the climbs, but the speed is too high for him to attack. After his break in May, the CSC-rider still isn't at his best form, which he is supposed to reach in one month's time, when the Tour de France will enter its deciding stages. One rider whose form improves from day to day is Andy Schleck, who is also up there at the front today. He crosses all the climbs with the favourites and finishes the stage in 19th position, in the same time than Gil, Jacksche, Ullrich, Kim Kirchen or brother Frank. The latter improves one position overall to fifth, because Gomez Marchante has a bad day, whereas Kim Kirchen moves up to 11th position. Two Luxembourgish riders in the top ten in the final overall classification, this could be within reach. Due to his good performance today, Andy Schleck jumps also up in the overall classification to 48th position.
16.06.2006 7: St. Moritz - Ascona (234 km)
Oscar Freire wins with genious trick
Results:
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Oscar Freire
Koldo Gil
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59th at 30"
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68th at 30'50"
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17th at 6"
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6th at 2'22"
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23th at 7"
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15th at 5'03"
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Another long mountain stage with the Julierpass at the very beginning and then later on the Lukmanierpass, whose summit is situated at more than 90 km from the finish line. With such a profile, tactics are once more very important and 8 riders choose to attack: David Herrero Lorrente, Martin Elminger, Michael Rogers, Salvatore Commesso, Oscar Freire Gomez, Matthew White, Beat Zberg and Matthieu Sprick break away on the descent of the Julierpass and manage to take 9 minutes of advantage on the long roads leading to the foot of the Lukmanierpass. They know that they can only suceed by working together, so they climb in steady rythm and reach the top of the climb grouped, having lost only little time. The gap to the main field is still 6 minutes and it is only after the descent that CSC wakes up the peloton. The team of Andy and Frank Schleck initiates the chase and is soon supported by the sprinter teams: Milram, Davitamon, then Quick-Step. With 30 km to go, the gap is still 3'30", it is 2 minutes 20 km from the finish and one minute at the 10 km mark. The suspense is growing because the break doesn't work well any more and there are attacks. Rogers and Commesso get away, then Oscar Freire comes back, jumps over a roundabout and takes several meters of advance. The Spaniards can smell the chasers on his back, but he continous and manages to keep a small advantage on the peloton, led by Bennati and Zabel, until the finish line. In the final kilometers during the very nervous racing, the peloton has divided into several small groups, with Kim Kirchen and Frank Schleck being at the front, and Andy Schleck not far behind in the biggest group.
15.06.2006 6: Fiesch - La Punt (212 km)
Double score for Koldo Gil, Schleck sixth
Results:
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Koldo Gil
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57th at 16'40"
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71st at 39'31"
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6th at 2'09"
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6th at 2'27"
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16th at 3'37"
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15th at 5'07"
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The second mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse 2006 can be considered as queen stage because three major climbs are present on the 212 km. The Furka-pass is with 2436 m the roof of the Tour and it preceeds the climbs of Oberalp (2046 m) and Albula (2315 m) only a few kilometers from the finish in La Punt. The classical screenplay is also respected for such a queen stage with a break that forms early and stays at the front for most of the day. Michael Rasmussen, King of the Mountain at last year's Tour de France, is the most known rider in the group that breaks clear after km 12. He is accompanied by Albasini, Perez, Moos, Bellotti et Gerrans. They have a maximal advantage of 10 minutes, before it decreases again after the reaction of Wurth and T-Mobile in the peloton. At the foot of the last climb, there are only 6 minutes of advantage left for the leaders and Rasmussen decides to react and to go on his own. Behind them, Kim Kirchen is doing a sensationnal job and with Jan Ullrich in his wheel, he explodes the peloton and only a few riders are able to follow them: Jörg Jaksche, Koldo Gil and Gomes-Marchante. Whereas Frank Schleck tries to come back together with leader Vicioso not far behind, the group Kirchen-Ullrich swallows up the riders of the early break. Shortly before the summit, the Spaniard Gil launches a counter attack behind Gomez-Marchante and goes away in irrestible manner, whereas Kim Kirchen has to let it go and he will lose three and a half minutes until the finish line which he crosses in 16th position. Despite a reaction from Ullrich and Jaksche, Koldo Gil manages to increase his lead up to 40 seconds which drives him to the stage victory and the golden leader's jersey. Behind Gil, Jaksche, Ullrich and Gomez, Frank Schleck is the strongest of the chasers. He manages to limit the losses and finishes the stage in 6th position. Nevertheless he has lost over 2 minutes to Gil and one and a half into Ullrich and Jacksche. In the overall classification, Schleck is still noticed in 6th position, but now 2'27" late to the new leader Gil, whereas Kim Kirchen is 15th a little bit more than 5 minutes down. Andy Schleck finishes the stage in a group of 20 riders 16'40" late with among others Aerts, Merckx, Kroon or Sinkewitz, who had all lost contact at the beginning of the Albula-climb.
14.06.2006 5: La Chaux-de-Fonds - Leukerbad (229 km)
Frank Schleck 7th in first mountain stage
Results:
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Steve Morabito
Angel Vicioso
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76th at 7'39"
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79th at 22'49"
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7th at 17"
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6th at 16"
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33rd at 1'29"
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26th at 1'28"
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First some hilly ground, than a long flat part of more than 100 km and finally the climb to Leukerbad (15 km at 5% average slope), that is the menu for today's marathon stage. And after the very tough day yesterday, it is normal that the peloton takes it a little bit easier at the beginning and the first real attack is already a good one. Indeed, Van Goolen, Monfort, Morabito, Grabsch, Carlström and Usov seem in a hurry to get to Leukerbad and the peloton doesn't have any idea to chase hard behind them. This group of 6 riders, that got away after around 40 km, takes over 12 minutes of advantage before the teams of Gerolsteiner, Wurth and T-Mobile around Kim Kirchen begin to chase in the peloton. At the beginning of the final climb to Leukerbad, the advantage of the leaders is still of 6 minutes, but on the first slopes, it melts like snow in the sun that shines once again above Switzerland today. Like the gap between the 6 and the chasers, the peloton itself also melts under the speed set by T-Mobile. Only about 35 riders are still present in this group as Guerini, Sinkewitz, Gerdemann, Ullrich and also an impressive Kim Kirchen tow it. Until 2 km from the finish-line, Kim leads the chase in his group, then he has to slow down a little bit and he finishes one minute and a half down on the winner. But the work of T-Mobile isn't rewarded because two riders, Jürgen Van Goolen and Steve Morabito manage to escape from the early break and stay clear until the finish line, where the young Swiss hope Morabito takes the victory in a two-man sprint. Frank Schleck has hidden all day in the peloton, but he is able to follow the different accelerations at the front and takes 7th place at the finish in the same time and just behind Vicioso, Gil, Bettini and Ullrich. Of course this makes him also progress in the overall classification where he moves up to 6th position, only 16 seconds late of the new overall leader Vicioso. Andy Schleck, on his side, loses contact to the very best towards the middle of the final climb and so he clearly avoids the gruppetto. The CSC-rider finishes more than 7 minutes down in a little group with Brochard, Verheyen, Bonnet and the leader at the King of the Mountains competition, Michael Albasini.
13.06.2006 4: Niederbipp - La Chaux-de-Fonds (161 km)
Vicioso winner and Kirchen 10th in crazy stage
Results:
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Angel Vicioso
Nick Nuyens
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133th at 15'35"
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84th at 15'35"
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20th at 1"
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23rd at 24"
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10th at 1"
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33rd at 24"
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One of the most active riders of the fourth stage at the Tour de Suisse 2006 is called Jan Ullrich. In a very fast race with lots of attacks from everywhere on another very hilly course, the "Kaiser" attacks strongly on the most difficult climb of the day, the Mont Soleil. After several accelerations, he gets rid of all the other riders and passes alone at the summit of the climb, with about 85 km to go. On the downhill, Ullrich is then caught by 13 other riders: Jörg Jaksche, Alberto Contador, Angel Vicioso, Beat Zberg, David Canada, Koldo Gil Perez, Jose Gomez Marchante, Alexandre Botcharov, Fabian Cancellara, Christian Vandevelde, Cadel Evans, Iker Flores and Marco Fertonani. A very prominent group though and they work very well together, so that their advantage on the rest of the field quickly exceeds two minutes. But the peloton led by Quick-Step manages to catch the group again after several kilometers of intensive chase. On the climbs of Vue des Alpes and col de la Tournée, Ullrich is again very active at the front of the peloton, and so does another team-mate of Kim Kirchen, Linus Gerdemann, who attacks several times on both climbs. But despite the incredible speed (43 km/h of average for the whole stage), there are always regroupements at the front and a group of around 70 riders is led by Rabobank for a predicted massive sprint towards the finish line. But with 5 kilometers to go, David Herrero attacks on a tiny climb and takes Angel Vicioso with him. They take up to 15 seconds of advantage and with a tremendous effort manage to stay away until the finish line, where Vicioso takes the stage victory. The first bigger group, led by Bennati and Freire, finishes only several meters later and Kim Kirchen also matches up with the sprinters to take a 10th place at the end. This position only underlines the outstanding performance of his team today, where it was not only the most agressive, but also placed 7 of its riders in the first group. Frank Schleck was also present at the front and he finished without damage this tricky stage, even if he surely had a difficult moment when the group Jan Ullrich with several GC contestands managed to get over 2 minutes of lead and he wasn't there. But everything turned out well at the end, which isn't the case for his brother Andy. The younger Schleck finished the stage 15 minutes late in a group around Boonen, Klöden, McEwen and 70 other riders. The difficulty of the stage is showed by the big gaps between the groups, the number of abandons (12) and riders outside the time-limit (3) worth of a big mountain stage. And the real mountains come only tomorrow.
12.06.2006 3: Einsiedeln - Arlesheim (188 km)
Nuyens takes second victory for Quick-Step
Results:
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Nick Nuyens
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37th at 11"
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41st at 24"
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26th at 11"
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33rd at 24"
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25th at 11"
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43rd at 24"
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Another very hilly stage that opened opportunities for attacks: after a relatively calm beginning, Marcel Strauss and Alan Perez Lezaun are the first riders to get a serious gap onto their rivals, nearly four minutes. But when Perez showed signs of weakness at the front, the mission seemed quite impossible for Strauss who had to continue alone after around 90 kilometers of break already, and the Gerolsteiner rider was caught by the pack with 20 kilometers to go. There was a serious climb with 300m of change in altitude around 20 km from the finish line and Paolo Bettini set the pace there with Jan Ullrich. Both of them seemed really strong splitting up the pack into several pieces, with Frank Schleck also being well at the front. But after an attack of Linus Gerdemann, four other riders went away and took half a minute of advantage: Gerdemann, Jörg Jaksche, Koldo Gil and Nick Nuyens. Despite the efforts of Bennati and his Lampre crew to come back to the front, these four riders managed to hold the pack at distance until the finish line, where Nuyens took the better out of the two Germans Gerdemann and Jaksche. Just 11 seconds behind them was a bigger group of about 70 riders with Frank and Andy Schleck, as well as Kim Kirchen in it. Other riders like Kroon, Cancellara, Etxebarria, Rasmussen, Kraus the man of the first break or Contrini the hero of yesterday had a more difficult day and finished several minutes down.
11.06.2006 2: Bremgarten - Einsiedeln (156 km)
The long day out of Daniele Contrini
Results:
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Daniele Contrini
Daniele Bennati
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89th at 5'08"
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54th at 18"
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72nd at 5'08"
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46th at 18"
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123rd at 5'08"
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68th at 18"
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It was a long, long day out at the front for Daniele Contrini who realized an outstanding performance by bringing successfully to an end a solo break of over 110 km. The first 40 km of the stage were very fast and very animated with lots of attacks from anywhere. Contrini waited for his opportunity to arise and he attacked just when the peloton decided to calm down a little bit. The way, the LPR rider managed to get over a quarter of an hour of advance, because behind him everyone watched out for the team of Tom Boonen, but Quick Step simply had
decided not to defend the yellow jersey. After a while, Gerolsteiner and Lampre took over and organized a chase, but it was already too late and Contrini was able to celebrate his biggest victory so far at the finish. Lampre nevertheless had a consolation prize because by winning the sprint of the bunch and thus finishing second of the stage, Daniele Bennati took over the golden jersey from the shoulders of Tom Boonen. On a somewhat hilly course but without real difficult climb, Kim Kirchen, Andy and Frank Schleck finished all in the bunch, 5 minutes late of happyman Contrini.
10.06.2006 1: Baden - Baden (154 km)
Masterpiece from Quick-Step and Boonen
Results:
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Tom Boonen
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55th at 0"
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55th at 10"
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51st at 0"
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51st at 10"
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48th at 0"
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48th at 10"
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Tom Boonen has concluded with his usual apparent easyness a collective masterpiece of the Quick-Step team. And the double winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen surely had to express his gratefullness to Paolo Bettini, who did a lot of work on the last local lap to reel in the remaining break of Albasini and Zampieri. With his work done, Bettini sat up in the last 500 meter of the stage, handing over to Tossato who did a perfect lead-out for the world champion. But the first real break of the day was made by the Spanish rider Redondo, who went away from the peloton at km 24.
Later on, with about 60 km to go on the climb of Rüti, the always offensive Steve Zampieri and Michael Albasini attacked behind Redondo. The two Swiss riders caught the man from Wurth and dropped him on the last local lap, but they were caught themselves by the peloton with only 6 km to go. Behind the break and after an attack from Dela Fuente which caused the reaction of Bettini and Boogerd in the field, this one was split up into two pieces. On a difficult course with the short but steep climb of Hertenstein, Kirchen and the two Schleck brothers were up front at that moment and they managed to catch the good train. On the other hand, sprinters like McEwen, Van Heeswijk, Zabel or Eisel and GC contenders like Klöden, McGee, Verbrugghe, Pellizotti or Zberg were in the second part of the peloton and they lost over a minute at the end of the stage. The Luxemburgish riders have crossed the finish line nearly side by side in 48th (Kim), 51st (Frank) and 55th (Andy) position, within the first group of 83 riders and in the same time than winner Tom Boonen.
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