Ulissi takes stage 5 at the Tour de Suisse as Porte snatches yellow

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Diego Ulissi wins stage 5 tour de suisse 2018

Richie Porte (BMC) took the race leader’s yellow jersey off teammate Stefan Kung’s back as Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) won Wednesday’s fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse.

Home favourite Kung suffered over the final few kilometres of the 155km stage from Gstaad to Leukerbad which featured three climbs.

Ulissi out-sprinted Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors) and Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data) to take the stage victory.

In his final race before July’s tour de France, Porte now sits atop the overall standings 20sec ahead of Sunweb’s riders Wilco Kelderman and Sam Oomen.

“I am just happy to be back racing and to have good form. It wasn’t a simple day but this jersey is all credit to my team today,” Porte said.

“The team was absolutely superb. They were fantastic all day. It was a hectic start and we covered the first 100km super quick and I don’t think it was an easy day for anyone.

“It may not have looked really hard in the final there but we went hard. All of the guys did their part today and I am so happy to have the jersey and keep it in the team.”

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) is in sixth, at just 33sec, while Katusha’s Simon Spilak, twice a winner (2015, 2017), is ninth (+46sec).

Thursday’s stage throws up the chance for the climbers in the field to make up some valuable time as the 186km ride features two feared climbs, to the top of Furka and Klausen.

There is a thigh-trembling total of 3,300 metres of climbing, with the toughest climb coming just 50km from the finish in Gommiswald.

Tour de Suisse 2018 – stage 5 results (Gstaad – Leukerbad):

1Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates)

3:37:31

2Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors)

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3Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data)

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4Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb)

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5Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo)

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6Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin)

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7Nairo Quintana (Movistar)

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8Richie Porte (BMC)

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9Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb)

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10Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal)

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General classification after stage 5:

1Richie Porte (BMC)

17:03:53

2Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb)

+20”

3Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb)

,,

4Enric MasĀ (Quick-Step Floors)

+21”

5Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott)

+29”

6Nairo Quintana (Movistar)

+33”

7Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida)

+36”

8Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates)

+40”

9Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin)

+46”

10Mikel Landa (Movistar)

+47”

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