Eddie Dunbar has put in a solid ride in the TT that opened the Tour de Suisse today. The pan-flat 10.9km test in Frauenfeld was definitely much more suited to the big powerful men in the field than the flyweight climbers like Dunbar.
However, the Irish rider clocked a respectable time of 12:54, at an average speed of 50.7km per hour, to place 59th of the 160-rider field. He was 54 seconds down on stage winner, and now race leader, Stefan Küng.
The Groupama-FDJ rider was taking his third win of the season and beat fellow Swiss rider Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo) by four seconds. Mattia Cattaneo (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was 3rd at 12 seconds.
Best of Dunbar's Ineos Grenadiers team was former world TT champion Rohan Dennis, who placed 10th at 23 seconds. Team leader Richard Carapaz put in a very good showing, placing 15th at 31 seconds.
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Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo Visma), who is in his comeback race after over five months away, was just one second and one place behind Carapaz.
Tomorrow's stage 2 takes the riders 178km from Neuhausen am Rheinfall to Lachen and features three cat 2 climbs in the second half of the course.
The last climb is 2.4km at an average gradient of just over eight per cent. It is crested 7.5km from the finish and may prove a launch pad for attacks.
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