Almeida triumphs in Suisse with Yates playing starring role

UAE Team Emirates put on another spectacle on stage 6 of the Tour de Suisse with Joao Almeida and Adam Yates taking a 1-2 victory on the shortened stage from Ulrichen to Blatten (42.5km).

After some impressive teamwork from young-guns Christen and Del Toro,  yellow jersey Adam Yates opened up the attacks at -4km pulling out a small lead on the chasing group of four which included Almeida, Egan Bernal (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek). Almeida would clip away from this group to join Yates and the duo sailed away to take an impressive 1-2 victory for the second day in a row.

Yates maintains the yellow jersey heading into the final two days of racing with Almeida just behind at 27”.

Almeida: “We were both really strong, and it was quite good, Adam attacked quite far from the finish, and I was on Skjelmose’s wheel so it was perfect for me. In the end, I could catch him without bringing the other riders across. So I’m really happy with this victory.

I think it’s positive, As long as we do first and second, it doesn’t matter who wins, I think we’re both happy. There’s good teamwork and there’s always respect for each other, that’s the main thing. At the end of the day, the team wins anyway so we just have to keep the focus these next two days, so hopefully we could make it.”

Stage results

1.Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) 55’13”

2.Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) +4”

3.Matthias Skjelmose (UAE Team Emirates)  +9”

General Classification after stage 6

1.Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) 16:39:46

2.Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +27”

3.Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) 1’28”