After brilliant lead-out by Van Poppel, Meeus capitalizes on only sprint opportunity in Tour of Switzerland

Romain Grégoire had finally lost the leader’s jersey on Thursday. The Frenchman from Groupama-FDJ had to hand it over to fellow countryman Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels after the queen stage. Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) won that dramatic stage, narrowly beating João Almeida (UAE Emirates-XRG) in the sprint. The Portuguese rider, however, made a strong move in the general classification.

No major GC shake-ups were expected on Friday. The 186.7 km stage from Chur to Neuhausen am Rheinfall featured two early climbs in the first 80 kilometers, but the final 100 kilometers were mostly flat, finally giving the fast men a rare opportunity to shine.

Right from the start, a strong group of four broke away: Harry Sweeny (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan Küng, Romain Grégoire, and Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla). An attempt by a group of eleven riders to join them quickly failed. Visma | Lease a Bike talent Thomas Gloag also tried to bridge across but didn’t succeed. So the leading quartet began the two climbs with a three-minute advantage.

Just before the second climb, Arnaud De Lie was briefly dropped, but the Belgian Lotto rider managed to return shortly after. On the climb to Hemberg, Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and the Bahrain Victorious duo Matej Mohoric and Pello Bilbao launched a counterattack. With 85 kilometers to go, they were just over a minute behind the breakaway, while the peloton trailed the chasing trio by slightly less than a minute. Meanwhile, Jan Christen (UAE Emirates-XRG) had abandoned the race.

Nevertheless, the chasing trio was quickly caught by the peloton, which also began rapidly closing in on the four leaders. With 45 kilometers to go, the breakaway lost a rider as Grégoire decided he’d had enough. At that point, the peloton still had a minute and a half to make up.

The breakaway, however, stayed clear for a long time, with the gap still at thirty seconds with just 15 kilometers remaining. Tiesj Benoot went down in the final kilometers, but the Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike was able to continue without serious damage. Just before the final kilometer, the breakaway was finally caught. Schmid made a last-ditch solo attempt, but it was in vain. Jordi Meeus was perfectly positioned and launched his sprint first. No one could come around him, and thanks to the excellent work by Danny van Poppel, the Belgian claimed the stage win. Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) took an impressive second place, and Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ) finished third.