Rui Costa climbs up in the top 5 after Solden summit arrival

The final climb of the 7th stage of the Tour de Suisse, with arrival in Solden, changed the profile of the general classification.
Spilak won the stage and he’s the new leader of the race; for UAE Team, the ascent to the 2780 meters of altitude of the arrival allowed Rui Costa to climb up one place, he’s now 5th at 2’35” to the Slovenian rider.

It was not an easy day for the Portuguese captain of the Emirati team, who was dropped from the head of the race at 13 km to the arrival. Despite this, Rui Costa set a pace which allowed him to exploit in the best way his energies and, in fact, he crossed the finish line (photo Bettini) in 9th place with a limited gap of 1’53” to the stage winner.

“Today stage too was very demanding, the gradient of the final ascent was over the 10%: it was important to pedal on a good cadence and I feel I succeeded in setting the best pace for me – Rui Costa commented – I gave my best and at the arrival I hit my target, which was to enter in the top 5.
Tomorrow we’ll race on a circuit, it will be important to avoid inconveniences, then the final time trial will give the definitive verdicts for the general classification: it will be interesting to check how many energies the top riders will still have to exploit, because during this edition of the Tour de Suisse everybody spent a lot of energies in every stage“.

Stage results
1. Spilak Simon (Kathusha-Alpecin) 3h58’36”
2. Izagirre Ion (Bahrain-Merida) 36″
3. Dombrowski Joe (1’04”)
9. Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) 2’20”

General classification
1. Spilak Simon (Kathusha-Alpecin) 26h02’16”
2. Caruso Damiano (BMC) 52″
3. Kruijswijk Steven (Lotto NL-Jumbo) 1’05”
5. Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) 2’35”