2023-06-18 16:40:29
The Tour de Suisse, overshadowed by the death of Swiss Gino Mäder, brought eighth place for Felix Gall as a final result. The Dane Mattias Skjelmose secured the victory. Gall, who excelled in the mountain stages, lost six positions in the time trial on Sunday. Due to his success in the first stage and the overall lead in the meantime, the 25-year-old from East Tyrol can count on a lot for the upcoming Tour de France.
In the time trial, Skjelmose (Trek) defended his narrow overall lead by finishing third nine seconds ahead of the Spanish winner of the day, Juan Ayuso (UAE). World Champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal) from Belgium finished second overall on the final day, 45 seconds back. Gall, who went into the final second, lost almost three and a half minutes in the fight against the clock from St. Gallen to Abtwil (25.7 km) in 91st place. The AG2R driver had already lost a lot of time in the opening time trial.
“At the moment I’m still a bit disappointed about the very bad time trial, but it wasn’t really surprising,” said Gall, citing an unspecified physical problem on the time trial as the cause. However, his overall balance was positive. “Basically, it was a very successful week. Eighth place is actually not bad at the Tour de Suisse, which is very strong.”
Like the largely neutralized stage on Saturday, the last day was also marked by the death of Mäder. “This is for Gino, I’m glad I was able to win the stage in memory of him,” said Ayuso, stating that the race was actually secondary due to the tragic events. Skjelmose agreed and spoke of difficult days for everyone involved at the moment of his greatest success to date.
On Friday, Mäder succumbed to his injuries sustained the day before in a high-speed fall on the descent from the Albula Pass. The planned stage was then cancelled, but the tour continued after consultation with von Mäder’s family, the teams and drivers. Some, like Gall, had spoken out in favor of canceling the tour in light of the tragic events.
Mäder’s Bahrain team, two other racing teams and 17 drivers from other teams did not compete on Saturday. The section was marked by mourning for Mäder. Only the last 25 km were held as a race, the Evenepoel, who was ahead after a solo, dedicated his victory to the late Swiss. Magnus Sheffield, who fell on the same stretch as Mäder on Thursday, has now been released from hospital. The Ineos professional had suffered a concussion.
At the women’s Tour de Suisse, Anna Kiesenhofer finished sixth in the time trial. The Olympic champion was one and a half minutes slower than the victorious Swiss Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) over the 26 km. She got her first top result for her new Israel team. In the overall classification, however, Kiesenhofer is far behind after two of four stages.
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