page_title: 2015 Tour de Suisse
section_title: Stage 7
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Tour de Suisse / Stages / Stage 7
caption_attribution_description: Alexander Kristoff , norsk syklist
context_page_description: The 2015 Tour de Suisse was the 79th edition of the Tour de Suisse stage race. It took place from 13 to 21 June and was the seventeenth race of the 2015 UCI World Tour. It started in Risch-Rotkreuz and finished in Bern. The race was composed of nine stages including two time trials, a short one on the first day and a long one on the last day. The event covered 1,258 km and visited Liechtenstein and Austria on its fifth stage. There was only one mountaintop finish, on the aforementioned stage five.
  The winner of the general classification was Slovenian Simon Špilak of Team Katusha, who won the race by a margin of only five seconds from Great Britain's Geraint Thomas. The ultimate selection was made on the last day's individual time trial. Tom Dumoulin of the Team Giant–Alpecin squad rounded up the podium. The latter won the two individual time trials, on the first and last stage.
  The mountains classification was awarded to Austria's Stefan Denifl, who featured in many breakaways to amass his points. The sprints classification was won by Slovakian Peter Sagan who also was the victor of two stages.
context_section_description: 19 June 2015 — Biel to Düdingen 160 km (99.4 mi)
  Stage 7 was a flat stage except for three Category 3 climbs in the second half of the stage. The opening 60 km (37.3 mi) were totally flat. After 91 km (56.5 mi), the riders tackled the finishing circuit twice. During that circuit, the first climb was the 1.1 km (0.7 mi)-long Freiburgstrasse. There was a descent, then the Hauptstrasse climb was covered. During the second circuit, the Freiburgstrasse was attacked again. This last difficulty was situated 19 km (11.8 mi) from the finish line. The final 800 m (2,624.7 ft) were steep.
  World road race champion Michał Kwiatkowski of the Etixx-Quick Step squad made attempts at escaping before the peloton finally let him go 20 km (12.4 mi) in to the race. He was joined by Silvan Dillier (BMC Racing Team), Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Axel Domont (Ag2r-La Mondiale). After the break was resolved, the peloton was content in letting the gap increase to 3' 15" with 129 km (80.2 mi) of racing remaining. The best placed rider in this quartet was Impey, 29' 18" down on race leader Thibaut Pinot (FDJ). The average speed of the first hour was 47.7 km/h (29.6 mph). Tinkoff-Saxo and Giant-Alpecin dictated the pace, pulling back thirty seconds. With 88 km (54.7 mi) to go, the race passed through the village of Misery-Courtion, at which point the gap stood at 2' 50". A crash occurred in the outskirts of Misery-Courtion, involving Ben Hermans and Manuel Senni (both with BMC Racing Team). They were able to remount their bikes and rejoined the main field.
  Wanty-Groupe Gobert's Enrico Gasparotto abandoned two hours into the stage, which were contested at the speed of 44 km/h (27.3 mph). With 55 km (34.2 mi) remaining, the escape had a minute lead. Domont took the maximum points atop the first KOM of the day. As they crossed the line for the last time with 37 km (23.0 mi) to go, the breakers were resisting as the time difference was still around a minute. On the second lap of the finishing circuit, Domont was dropped from the breakaway and was absorbed in by the peloton. The now three-rider break had a thirty-second advantage with 10 km (6.2 mi) remaining. Team Katusha controlled the front of the field in the final kilometers. With 2 km (1.2 mi) to go, the peloton almost pulled back the all unyielding breakers, Kwiatkowski decided to go alone. He was caught in sight of the finish line. The uphill sprint was won by Alexander Kristoff of Team Katusha, with Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) being a close second. Sagan got out of Kristoff's slipstream to try to out-sprint him in the final meters, but to no avail. This was Kristoff's eighteenth victory of the season. Through bad positioning, Pinot lost a further five seconds to Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) in the overall classification. "It was a hard day, I haven't felt super in this Tour de Suisse but I did a good sprint today," said the winner. "I got ahead of Sagan and I was able to go again at the end to hold off his run."
caption: Team Katusha rider Alexander Kristoff (pictured in 2009) won stage seven's bunch sprint finish.
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