Philip Deignan during today's stage 8 of the Tour de Suisse on what was one of his best climbing performances of recent years (Photo: Sirotti)
By Gerard Cromwell
Philip Deignan put in another sterling performance at the Tour de Suisse today to take sixth place on the hors category summit finish at Verbier.
Deignan had already shown he has recovered well from a strong ride at the recent Giro d’Italia when he took second place on the opening road stage in Switzerland on Monday.
But the Letterkenny man then settled down to work for his Team Sky leaders; Sergio Henao, Bradley Wiggins and Pete Kennaugh for the rest of the week.
However, with Wiggins and Henao having crashed out of the race during the week, Deignan’s Sky also squad lost Kennaugh today with illness, leaving the rest of the team with a free hand for the final two stages.
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“We lost Sergio yesterday and then we lost Pete today during the stage so the team just told me to try and stay with the group as long as possible on the last climb,” said the Donegal man afterwards.
“The climb was pretty windy so as long as you could stay in the wheels it wasn’t too bad. I just hung on as long as I could.”
With his German teammate Christian Knees in the early breakaway group of eight riders, Deignan bided his time in the peloton until the race hit the final ascent.
Once on those slopes, the pace set by Roman Kreuziger’s Tinkoff-Saxo team soon saw the break reeled in and the peloton whittled down to just a dozen or so riders.
With the last escapee caught with 4km to go, Colombian Johan Esteban Chavez of Orica GreenEDGE then put in the first real dig from the elite front group with 2.5km remaining.
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Deignan riding on the front carrying out team duties on Thursday. Free from that work after his leaders abandoned, he says he will try again in the mountains on tomorrow's final stage (Photo: Sirotti)
“When the Colombian guy attacked there was still quite a big group of us there,” said Deignan.
“It whittled down after that. Kreuziger put in a big turn and that split the group a little bit.”
As Kreuziger rode away with Dutch climber Bauke Mollema of Belkin in pursuit of Chavez, Deignan found himself just off the back of a group of six riders including race leader Tony Martin of Omega Pharma Quickstep and world road race champion Rui Costa of Lampre.
“I stayed with (Janier) Acevedo (Garmin Sharp) and we were only about five or ten metres behind the group with Tony Martin and Rui Costa in it. We just got back onto them with about a kilometre to go."
As Chavez took the stage win, three seconds clear of Kreuziger and Mollema, Deignan took third in the sprint from the chase group, for sixth place on the stage.
“I knew there were a couple of corners coming in to the finish so I tried to move up the group a little bit but I don’t think I really could have done any more to be honest.
"It was a pretty solid ride so I’m happy enough. It’s just good for the confidence, good to know that I can do it.”
With their team leaders now out of the race, the remaining Sky riders will have a free hand again tomorrow and Deignan says he will try again on the Hors Category summit finish to Saas-Fe.
“I’ll probably try and get in a move tomorrow. If I don’t get in the break, I’ll just do what I did today and just try and stay with the lead group as long as I can.”
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