Yves Lampaert wins the opening time trial at the Tour de Suisse in Vaduz

This year's edition of the Tour de Suisse got underway with a short opening time trial around Liechtenstein’s capital city of Vaduz on a technical 5km-long course. With a time of just over five minutes, Yves Lampaert flew around the course at an average speed of around 56km/h to take the victory as well as the overall lead of the race.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider set the benchmark time, with nobody able to better it throughout the day, despite many talented time trial specialists being in attendance. This marks Lampaert’s first win since his time trial victory on the opening stage of the Tour de France in 2022 and shows that he is in good form ahead of this year’s race, which starts later this month.

Speaking in his post-race interview, Lampaert commented on taking his first win in two years, as he said “nowadays the level is so high in cycling. At one moment I started to doubt myself, but I never gave up the belief and I kept training as good as possible, so it really gives me a lot of satisfaction that I could take the victory today”.

It was an upset for the Swiss riders at their home race, as Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) all finished in the top ten, but narrowly missed out on the stage win. Bissegger came closest in second place, but even he finished three seconds down on Lampaert, a rather large margin over that sort of distance.

On beating those time trial specialists, Lampaert said “I didn’t expect to beat the Swiss specialists, Bissegger and Küng. I am really proud that I could do it. I know the distance fits me well and I am really happy”.

A strong performance from Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) saw him finish in third place on the stage, whilst the likes of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) all made good starts to the race, as they look to contest the overall victory later in the race.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The course for the time trial was rectangular in shape, running along narrow streets and a canal path, with technical corners and bends making it complicated for the riders. The road surface was also far from ideal, with storm drains littering the route and some riders having to perform bunny-hops during their run.

João Almeida set the best time early on and remained in the hot seat for sometime as the likes of Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Stefan Küng failed to better the time of the Portuguese rider.

It was not until Yves Lampaert went onto the course that Almeida’s time looked under threat, but the Belgian was still down in third place at the intermediate split. He was well up by the time he reached the finish though and crossed the line six seconds up to set the new fastest time.

We then saw many other riders try and fail to better Lampaert’s time, but to no avail. The likes of Stefan Bissegger and Ethan Hayter came close, but were just out of reach of the best time and with no other obvious contenders left to start it seemed certain that Lampaert would take the stage win.

A brief rain shower then made the course even more complicated, with a slippery start ramp causing many riders problems as they attempted to put some power down out of the start house. The damp course effectively ruined any hopes of victory for those still left to run, as they were not able to take the same kind of risks through the corners as the riders that had gone before them.

In the end it was a rather comfortable day in the hot seat for Lampaert once all of the main stage favourites had finished. He will now be hoping to hang onto the overall lead of the race on the undulating sprint stage to Regensdorf on stage two, as he said “I think tomorrow is a really nice stage, a lot of sprinters can probably make it, so let’s hope that it is a sprint stage with a small group and let’s try to keep the jersey”.

RESULTS: TOUR DE SUISSE 2024, STAGE ONE, VADUZ > VADUZ (5KM) 

1. Yves Lampaert (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, in 5:05
2. Stefan Bissegger (Swi) EF Education-EasyPost, +3s
3. Ethan Hayter (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers, +4s
4. João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates, +7s
5. Finn Fisher-Black (NZl) UAE Team Emirates, at same time
6. Samuel Watson (GBr) Groupama-FDJ, +9s
7. Alberto Bettiol (Ita) EF Education-EasyPost, at same time
8. Stefan Küng (Swi) Groupama-FDJ, +11s
9. Mauro Schmid (Swi) Jayco AlUla
10. Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Alpecin-Deceuninck, all at same time

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE ONE 

1. Yves Lampaert (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, in 5:05
2. Stefan Bissegger (Swi) EF Education-EasyPost, +3s
3. Ethan Hayter (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers, +4s
4. João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates, +7s
5. Finn Fisher-Black (NZl) UAE Team Emirates, at same time
6. Samuel Watson (GBr) Groupama-FDJ, +9s
7. Alberto Bettiol (Ita) EF Education-EasyPost, at same time
8. Stefan Küng (Swi) Groupama-FDJ, +11s
9. Mauro Schmid (Swi) Jayco AlUla
10. Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Alpecin-Deceuninck, all at same time