Alberto Bettiol sprints into yellow at the Tour de Suisse

The Italian finished third in the sprint and gained enough time to take over the lead in the general classification the day before the Swiss tour heads into the Alps. Tomorrow, he’ll put his excellent form to work for the team on the race’s first mountain stage, which will finish on the snow-covered slopes of the Gotthard Pass. The 2041-meter col, which was long the main passage from northern to southern Europe over the Alps, promises to turn the GC upside down.

“Tomorrow, the Tour de Suisse will change completely,” Alberto said after he had pulled on the leader’s shirt. “But, with this yellow jersey, I give positive waves to all the team and give us confidence. We are a group of friends. We always try to do our best. When we put all of our energy together for one goal, like we saw today, we can do something great. This is our spirit. We have to approach every race like this. Today, we took the responsibility. We pulled in the final. We wanted to race hard. Thibau Nys was really, really strong. He deserved to win. But yellow is a great achievement as well. It’s payback for the work all of the riders and the staff did for me.”

Alberto especially wants to pay back Richard Carapaz, who did a tremendous job for him in the final kilometer to set him up for the sprint, as well as our young climber Georg Steinhauser, who showed that he’s still got his Giro-stage-winning form with a powerful pull over the top of the Albipass to keep Alberto in the running and help drop the sprinters.

“They did an amazing job for me,” Alberto said. “In the last kilometers, Richard helped me a lot. He put me in a perfect position. That’s not something I take for granted, because he's an Olympic champion. I really appreciate it, but this is our team spirit. We are just normal guys who work together all year and show that we can do a great job when we do. Today, I wanted to win. I didn’t. I’m not sad, because I couldn't do better. I was on Nys’s wheel and I was not able to pass him, but I took the yellow jersey, so I'm really happy. Georg did a great job too. They both worked for me and tomorrow I have to pay them back. Of course, the level here is very high. We have really strong climbers, but we never know. I’ll ride for them tomorrow in this yellow jersey and hope to give them a positive spirit.”

You already have, Alberto. Forza in the mountains tomorrow!