Küng wins battle of the Swiss Stefans in opening time trial at Tour de Suisse 2021

(Image credit: Getty)

published 6 June 2021

It was a battle of the Swiss Stefans on the opening time trial stage of the 2021 Tour de Suisse, with Küng getting the best of Bissegger, as the European time trial champion won the 10.9km-long race against the clock by four seconds.

EF Education-Nippo's Bissegger was among the first few dozen riders to start and went into the hot seat after managing a time of 12-04 over the course in Frauenfeld, proceeding to watch around 100 riders finish before the only man able to beat him would come across the line.

Groupama-FDJ's Küng went three seconds faster at the intermediate sprint before adding another second before the finish line to finish in 12 minutes flat.

The New Zealander Tom Scully came in soon after, coming second closest to the Swiss pair with a time of 12-15, after the second-to-last man off the start ramp Mattia Cattaneo (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) rounded out the podium, going three seconds quicker than Scully.

Cattaneo's team-mate Julian Alaphilippe also posted a strong time, finishing fifth in 12-19 after managing the second-fastest time at the intermediate sprint.

The rest of the top 10 on the stage were separated by only three seconds, Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers) finishing 10th, while team-mate Richard Carapaz finished half a minute down on Küng in 15th, one second quicker than the returning Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) in 16th.

Jakob Fuglsang (Astana - Premier Tech) had a bit of a scary moment when he had to share the road with a car that had gotten onto the course, thankfully emerging unscathed. He will, however, likely be disappointed at finishing 53 seconds off the pace.

Results - Tour de Suisse 2021, stage one: Frauenfeld to Frauenfeld (10.9km) ITT

1. Stefan Küng (Sui) Groupama-FDJ, in 12-00
2. Stefan Bissegger (Sui) EF Education-Nippo, at four seconds
3. Mattia Cattaneo (Ita) Deceuninck - Quick-Step, at 12s
4. Tom Scully (NZl) EF Education-Nippo, at 15s
5. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Deceuninck - Quick-Step, at 19s
6. Jonas Rutsch (Ger) EF Education - Nippo, at 22s
7. Jannik Steilme (Ger) Deceuninck - Quick-Step, at same time
8. Florian Vermeersch (Bel) Lotto-Soudal
9. Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) DSM, both at same time
10. Rohan Dennis (Aus) Ineos Grenadiers

General classification after stage one

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Hi. I'm Cycling Weekly's Weekend Editor. I like writing offbeat features and eating too much bread when working out on the road at bike races.

Before joining Cycling Weekly I worked at The Tab and I've also written for Vice, Time Out, and worked freelance for The Telegraph (I know, but I needed the money at the time so let me live).

I also worked for ITV Cycling between 2011-2018 on their Tour de France and Vuelta a España coverage. Sometimes I'd be helping the producers make the programme and other times I'd be getting the lunches. Just in case you were wondering - Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen had the same ham sandwich every day, it was great.