Eddie Dunbar is now moving into a very interesting stage of his career, aged just 21 years. And the next nine days should be very interesting for the Irish rider at the Tour de Suisse.
Eddie Dunbar begins WorldTour stage race career
Having enjoyed some great form of late, Eddie Dunbar is underway in his first ever WorldTour stage race.
The 21-year-old Irishman was part of the Aqua Blue Sport line-up that finished 19th in the 18km TTT that began the Tour de Suisse today.
Run off in Frauenfeld, the opening stage was won by BMC Racing. It clocked a time of 20:18, claiming victory by 20 seconds from Team Sunweb.
Next was QuickStep and Bora-hansgrohe; finishing in 3rd and 4th on the same time at 27 seconds.
Mitchelton-Scott was next; some 29 seconds down on the winners. And rounding out the top six was Movistar, some 33 seconds off the winning time.
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Aqua Blue Sport was 1:16 off the pace in 19th place; on the same time as Direct Energie and one place ahead of Astana.
Eddie Dunbar has said he plans to pick out a couple of stages and try and get up the road to see what he can do.
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Tomorrow is a 155km circuit race; four laps of a lumpy circuit around Frauenfeld.
It features a categorised climb each lap and can suit the Aqua Blue Sport men, including Dunbar, if they are going well.
Stage 3 is 182km from Oberstammheim to Gansingen. The riders face 2½ laps of a finishing circuit with five short sharp climbs.
The following day takes the riders 189km from Gansingen to Gstaad. There is just one climb; peaking at 1,300, followed by a descent into the finish.
Stage 5 is 155km from Gstaad to Leukerbad, with two large climbs in the final third of the race. The stage finishes atop the second of those mountains, at an altitude of 1,400 metres.
That is followed by stage 6, the queen stage with the Furka Pass and Klausen Pass.
Those two alpine passes, combined with a small climb very close to the finish, see the riders tackle 3,300 metres of climbing that day.
Stage 7 is another one for the climbers; 170km from Eschenbach-Atzmännig to Arosa featuring a summit finish.
The penultimate stage is a 123km circuit race; six laps in Bellinzona. And while there are no categorised climbs the bumps on the course will feel more difficult at the end of such a hard week.
The race concludes with a 34km TT in Bellinzona; the mostly flat course looking set to suit the powerful men.
Result: Team Time Trial (18km)
1 BMC Racing Team 0:20:18
2 Team Sunweb 0:00:20
3 Quick-Step Floors 0:00:27
4 Bora-Hansgrohe
5 Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:29
6 Movistar Team 0:00:33
7 Bahrain-Merida 0:00:36
8 Groupama-FDJ 0:00:45
9 Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:46
10 UAE Team Emirates 0:00:50
11 LottoNl-Jumbo 0:00:53
12 Lotto Soudal 0:00:58
13 Trek-Segafredo
14 Team Sky 0:01:02
15 EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:01:05
16 AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:07
17 Dimension Data 0:01:10
18 Direct Energie 0:01:16
19 Aqua Blue Sport
20 Astana Pro Team 0:01:18
21 Nippo-Vini Fantini-Europa Ovini 0:02:01
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