Rohan Dennis triumphs in opening stage of Tour de Suisse
Jun 16 2019 05:48 am CET
Bahrain-Merida © Mary Cárdenas / CyclingPub.com
Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) has taken the victory of the opening stage of the Tour de Suisse. The time trial World Champion also finished the day as the leader of the General Classification.
The opening stage of the 83rd edition of the Tour de Suisse was a 9.5-kilometre individual time trial in Langau im Emmental. The favourite of the day was the local Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) but despite having the best time in the midway point, he finished the day in the ninth position of the classification.
Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) sported the colours of the World time trial champion and even if things didn't look on his favour at the midway point, he managed to make up for the time in the second half and stopped the clock in 10 minutes and 50 seconds. Bora-hansgrohe's Maciej Bodnar was in the second place with the same time as the Australian and Sunweb's Michael Matthews finished in the third position one second behind.
Dennis also took the lead of the general classification. "Today it was a hard one, it was quite a mental battle for me because in the last months my results they were very far away from what I expected," the Australian explained.
"Finally, today I made it and it’s a great feeling to be back on that top step. Tomorrow I will be in the yellow jersey and I will do my best to defend it. The penultimate stage will be another ITT and I feel confident to repeat today performance. And then there is the Tour de France I’m looking forward to it."
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