Norwegian Thor Hushovd claimed his first stage win as reigning world champion when he surged to victory over Peter Sagan in the fourth stage of the Tour de Suisse on Tuesday.
Italian Damiano Cunego of Lampre retained the race leader’s yellow jersey to keep his 54--second lead on Colombian Juan Mauricio Soler of the Movistar team as the race took a brief sojourn from climbing in the high mountains.
On the first of only two stages set aside for the sprinters in the nine-day race, Hushovd was predicted to excel largely because of the profile of the stage.
Photo: EPA
Beginning in Grindelwald, it crossed the Bernese countryside before ending with a 2km climb at an average gradient of 3.1 percent to the finish line in Huttwil.
However, after the peloton had chased down the remnants of a three-man break, Garmin rider Hushovd was made to work for the privilege on a fast-paced final 25km circuit where the attacks came and went.
German Jens Voigt of Leopard Trek went for broke 4.3km from home, but with the sprinters keen on keeping the victory for themselves he was reeled in just as the peloton began to head up to the finish line.
The HTC-Highroad team of British sprint king Mark Cavendish were omnipresent during the closing circuit, employing Michael Albasini and Peter Velits on the small climbs to set a punishing pace.
However, at the finish Cavendish was nowhere to be seen, the Isle of Man rider eventually trailing home 7 minutes, 23 seconds off the pace.
Voigt’s teammate Stuart O’Grady then went off on his own, only for the Australian to be reeled in with 400m remaining.
A small bunch sprint seemed inevitable, but from the chaos only two riders emerged — Hushovd and Sagan of Liquigas, who beat Cunego to victory on stage three at the foot of the Eiger mountain on Monday.
To his credit, Sagan gave the big world champion a run for his money, but after a tight finish Hushovd put on his biggest smile for the cameras this season.
While established sprinters like Cavendish, Andre Greipel and Robbie McEwen failed to contest the finale, climbing specialist Cunego survived the peloton’s relentless pace to finish an impressive 13th on the stage.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier