Australia’s Rohan Dennis took a razor-thin victory on the opening day individual time-trial at the Tour de Suisse on Saturday.
Bahrain-Merida’s Dennis, who beat Tom Dumoulin at the 2018 time-trial world championships, completed the 9.5km high-altitude course in 10min 50sec.
The entire top ten were within 11 seconds of each other as Poland’s Maciej Bodnar was second and another Australian, Sunweb’s Michael Matthews, was third.
For Dennis the victory is his first since joining Bahrain from BMC.
“Today it was a hard one,” said Dennis. “It was quite a mental battle for me because in the last months my results they were very far away from what I expected.”
“Finally, today I made it and it’s a great feeling to be back on that top step. Tomorrow I will be in yellow jersey and I will do my best to defend it. The penultimate stage will be another ITT and I feel confident to repeat today performance. And then there is the Tour de France I’m looking forward to it ”.
“It’s was a super start!” added Bahrain-Merida SD Tristan Hoffman, “Everything went right and I’m very happy about Rohan’s result. Of course, congratulations to everybody, riders and staff, for their work.”
The ITT world champion beat Poland’s Maciej Bodnar and Australian Michael Matthews for less than a second.
Of the overall contenders for the eight-stage run through the Alps, Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas, a powerful time-trialer, was fastest. His young Ineos teammate the talented Colombian all rounder Egan Bernal, was just six seconds behind him.
“I’ll refuel at the at the hotel tonight,” said Thomas, admitting he never expected to challenge for the win on Saturday.
“There’s a big eight days to come. Tomorrow is a new day and we’re looking forward to getting back on the bike and giving our all.”
Tomorrow, the 2nd stage includes three identical rounds of 53.2 kilometers with some climbs south of Langnau.
Stage 1 Brief Results:
- Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) at 10’50”
- Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t.
- Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) at 2″
- Søren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb) at 2″
- Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) at 3″
- Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) at 5″
- Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 8″
- Patrick Bevin (CCC Team) at 9″
- Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) at 9″
- Tom Scully (EF Education First) at 11″
General Classification After Stage 1:
- Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida at 10’50”
- Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t.
- Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) at 2″
- Søren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb) at 2″
- Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) at 3″
- Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) at 5″
- Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 8″
- Patrick Bevin (CCC Team) at 9″
- Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) at 9″
- Tom Scully (EF Education First) at 11″
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