Tour de Suisse – Stage 6 – Dries Devenyns «The stage was long, very wet, and particularly dangerous in the final»

Peter Sagan had nothing to hide when winning the sprint in front of the new sporting complex in Biel. The Tinkoff-Saxo rider succeeded in equaling the number of stage victories in the Tour of Switzerland, tying the mark set by Hugo Koblet and Ferdy Kübler of 11 stages a piece.  After a sprint that was made dangerous by road furniture, Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) retained his lead in the overall classification ahead of three difficult stages.  As for IAM Cycling, its goal of protecting the mountain jersey for Stefan Denifl and the 9^th place overall for Sébastien Reichenbach was achieved without a hitch.

Dries Devenyns, a model teammate on the Swiss professional team, was grateful to have a hot shower after a day in the rain and cold before talking about the work he accomplished and his own fitness level.  “The stage was long, very wet, and especially dangerous in the finale.  I don’t understand the attraction of having that type of final kilometer which must be delicately negotiated. We worked hard to protect Stefan and Sébastien, but it was a complicated exercise. There were lots of crashes near the end, but we managed to avoid any mishap, even with the roads made so slippery by the rain.  Personally, I have not fully recovered after my classics campaign.  My back keeps bothering me and I have not returned to the form from this spring.  But I am ready and happy to help my teammates.”

Kjell Carlström, directeur sportif along with Mario Chiesa for IAM Cycling, was determined to take his hat off to his riders.  “The goal was to provide Stefan and Sébastien the best possible protection and to bring them without incident to the finish line.  We succeeded in that, knowing that we were not in contention for the stage victory since we didn’t bring a true sprinter to this race.  We warned the riders that the last kilometers would be very dangerous.  And they succeeded in staying out of trouble, even if the final was pretty crazy.  Now the guys have to save themselves as much as possible for the final time trial on Sunday.”