Key Takeaways: Tour de Suisse Final Weekend

Breaking down what we learned at the final weekend of the last pre-Tour de France tune-up event

Programming Note: The Beyond the Peloton Newsletter will be taking a brief break as I relocate to France in preparation for the Tour and will return with next week’s 2024 Tour de France Cheat Sheet.

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Adam Yates won the Tour de Suisse, the final Tour de France tune-up race, ahead of his teammate João Almeida, as the UAE team steamrolled the competition and headed toward the upcoming Tour de France as the sport’s dominant stage-racing team. Behind, Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose put together an incredible final time trial to grab the last remaining overall podium spot. At the same time, Ineos’ Egan Bernal slipped into fourth after an incredibly poor showing against the clock, and Israel-Premier Tech’s young American Matthew Riccitello continued to pressure his team management’s Tour selection process by finishing fifth ahead of the Tour podium hopefuls like Tom Pidcock and Enric Mas.

While Yates and Almeida's performances on the road in Switzerland were impressive, the fact that they are likely to slot into support roles for Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France yet were beating up on other outright team leaders sent a resounding message to the rest of the Tour de France GC contenders that unless they up their game, they will be left fighting for table scraps in July.

Final GC Top Ten:
1) Adam Yates (UAE) +0
2) João Almeida (UAE) +22
3) Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +3’02
4) Egan Bernal (Ineos) +3’12
5) Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech) +3’31
6) Tom Pidcock (Ineos) +4’36
7) Enric Mas (Movistar) +5’01
8) Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL) +5’40
9) Wilco Kelderman (Visma-Lease a Bike) +6’31
10) Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +6’35

Stages 7-8 Notebook

Stage 7
4.2km-to-go: Due to being firmly in control of the GC, Adam Yates’ UAE team leaves the front after pulling through the preceding valley and allows Egan Bernal’s Ineos team to take up the work of pacemaking on the final climb.

3km: When Bernal runs out of teammates, João Almeida, sitting second in the GC, just 27 seconds behind his teammate Yates, attacks. Considering UAE has nothing to gain from this move other than Almeida overtaking his teammate for the race lead, this is slightly unexpected.

2.8km: IPT’s Matthew Riccitello follows Almeida, with Yates on his wheel, while nearly every other rider is left behind.

1.1km: After some slightly awkward urging from Almeida for Yates to counter-attack while he dangled a few meters off his wheel with Riccitello, the two UAE riders eventually ride clear of the rest, exchanging a few words as they approach the final kilometer.

1km: After a deal is struck and/or Almeida relents, Yates takes the lead as the teammates ride toward a 1-2 finish.

Finish: After a scene of Yates and Almeida appearing to give the win to the other rider, Yates crosses the finish line first to take the ten-second time bonus and all but seal the GC win due to extending his overall lead to 31 seconds. Matthew Riccitello comes in 14 seconds later to move into fifth place overall.

Stage Top Three
1) Adam Yates (UAE) +0
2) João Almeida (UAE) +22
3) Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech) +14

Stage 8
10km-to-go: Yates heads through the first time check over 30 seconds behind the day’s fastest time after a fairly pedestrian opening flat five kilometers, but, after a well-executed bike change, gets to work on the 8% average gradient climb to the finish line.

8.5km: Almeida, who took 1.4 seconds per kilometer on Yates through the flat section, hits the climb with incredible speed, putting out an estimated average power of roughly 445 watts (7w/kg).

3.5km: After a scorching opening section of the climb, Yates comes through the second time check, nearly tied with Mattias Skjelmose for the day’s fastest time and three seconds ahead of Almeida, which appears to seal the overall win.

1km: Almeida’s negative-split pacing sees him turn the tide once again as he approaches the final kilometer with by far the fastest pace through the third section of the course.

500m: Even considering their differing places on the climb and in the race, a side-by-side shot shows just how hard Almeida is going relative to Yates, who is riding incredibly controlled with almost no upper body movement.

Almeida Finish: Capping off his scorching final four kilometers, Almeida crosses the finish line over 20-seconds ahead of Skjelmose.

Yates Finish: Yates comes over the finish line 8 seconds behind Almeida but takes the overall win with a comfortable 22-second buffer to his teammate.

Stage Top Three
1) João Almeida (UAE) +0
2) Adam Yates (UAE) +8
3) Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +20

Key Takeaways

1) Adam Yates Won the Race, But João Almeida May Have Been the Stronger Rider: The headline from the week in Switzerland is that last Tour de France’s best-of-the-rest, Adam Yates, gets the first Tour de Suisse win of his career and appears on form to match, or even better, his third place at last year’s Tour de France due to displaying climbing performances that trail only Tadej Pogačar so far in 2024.

• However, behind this objective great performance is the slight wrinkle that his UAE teammate Almeida might have had a better overall race, considering his scorching time trial performance and the fact that he finished within 22 seconds of Yates despite setting pace on the front for the final climb on three consecutive mountain stages.

  • Yates’ superior all-around skills, especially on tricky days like Stage 9 that will seriously test Almeida’s technical skills, likely makes him the better bet to battle for the overall podium at the Tour, especially when we take into account the fact that both riders produced almost identical nearly 7w/kg climbing performances for the 20-minute final climb.

2) UAE’s Embarrassment of GC Riches Leaves Them With Difficult Choices To Make at the Tour de France: Due to the performances of Adam Yates and João Almeida and the ease at which they controlled the race throughout the week in Switzerland, it is clear that the team of Tadej Pogačar, whose strength was questioned heading into the Giro d’Italia, and who had a subdued Critérium du Dauphiné, will be heading into the Tour de France with both the strongest team and rider in the race.

• This is bad news for anyone wishing to challenge Pogačar at the Tour de France since it sets up the terrifying possibility of an unstoppable mountain train consisting of Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler, Juan Ayuso, João Almeida, and Adam Yates, with Pogačar surfing wheels on the back, but it doesn’t come without complications.

  • While the quietly brewing tension between Yates and Almeida proved to not be an issue at Suisse, things are always easier to manage when you are far and away the best in a race; it raises the question of what exactly the hierarchy will be at the upcoming Tour where the stakes and competition are far higher.

    • For example, with Yates, Almeida, and Ayuso all potentially being good enough to land on the Tour podium, it could be challenging for UAE to divide pace-setting duties since one, if not two, of these riders, will have to sacrifice their overall chances by pacing earlier on climbs before pulling off and losing time.

  • One thing to keep in mind heading out of Suisse is that while it currently looks like nothing can stand in the way of a UAE Tour de France podium sweep, is that the Tour has a way of cutting teams that appear unbeatable down to size in its opening week.

    • A good example of this is the Visma (then Jumbo-Visma) team being taken down hours into the 2021 Tour due to a non-attentive fan and the Roglič-Vingegaard double-headed monster being cut down to a single threat after Roglič crashed on Stage 5 of the 2022 Tour.

3) The Time Trial Time Checks Hold Valuable Clues About the Form of Each GC Contender: While we know that Almeida and Yates were on great form throughout the week, if we look at the final day time trial splits, the level of each contender begins to come into focus.

• Looking at how much time each GC contender made up, or lost, once they hit the climb gives us a very clear picture of their current form since it comes eight days into racing and is almost a laboratory-esque setting (a solo 8% climb).

  • Standings at Checkpoint #1 (11km-to-go and start of climb)

    • Bernal: +0
      Almeida: -2
      Pidcock: -4
      Skjelmose: -7
      Yates: -9
      Riccitello: -18
      Mas: -19

  • Standings at Checkpoint #2 (3.5km-to-go)

    • Skjelmose: +0
      Yates: +0
      Almeida: -3
      Riccitello: -9
      Pidcock: -18
      Mas: -33

      Bernal: -33

  • Finish

    • Almeida: +0
      Yates: -8

      Skjelmose: -20
      Riccitello: -37
      Pidcock: -50
      Bernal: -1’30
      Mas: -1’47

• As outlined above, Almeida’s impressive surge inside the final three kilometers and Yates’ ability to parry this effort and defend his race lead tell us they are in a great place heading into the Tour de France, but if we look further down, we see major signs of trouble for the rest.

  • While Skjelmose and Riccitello (who made IPT’s decision to take Chris Froome to the Tour de France over him even more difficult since he proved he is strong enough to be a stage racing leader on nearly every WorldTour team) produced promising rides since they were paced fairly well and allowed them to bag meaningful results for them (3rd and 5th overall), the stage produced highly troubling data for the rest.

    • For example, Pidcock and Bernal lost 35 and 60 seconds to Almeida, who will be acting in a domestique role at the Tour, in the uphill final 3.5 kilometers of the stage, respectively. This suggests they simply don’t have the current climbing or time-trialing ability to challenge in the GC at the upcoming Tour.

    • Additionally, Mas coming in last through every time check and being dropped throughout the week in the road stages signals that he likely won’t be at the level needed to challenge in the GC in two weeks’ time at the Tour.

4) Ineos Is Once Again Heading To the Tour With a Vague, Confusing, and Potentially Problematic Lack of Clarity: If Suisse showed us just how many options UAE has heading into the Tour, it also displayed the limited options facing other teams vying for the overall podium, like Ineos and Movistar.

• For example, after missing the overall podium with Carlos Rodríguez at the Critérium du Dauphiné, in Switzerland, Ineos yet again finished in fourth due to Bernal losing his near-minute advantage to slip off the podium due to an incredibly poor time trial performance.

  • Along with Tom Pidcock being off the pace on every summit finish and in the time trial and Geraint Thomas carrying fatigue from his recent ride to third place at the Giro d’Italia, Ineos is once again heading into the Tour without a proven and on-form podium contender.

    • Considering just how much drama they struggled with at the 2023 Tour de France with just two GC options, they could be sleepwalking into a significantly more difficult situation in 2024 due to this blob of top ten options without a single out-and-out podium contender.