<\/p>\n A 30-second gap was too much to close over the final kilometres of the race, and instead the sextet of survivors from the early 14-man move contested the stage among themselves.<\/p>\n Latest Videos From After 120km in the front of the race, it was Gr\u00e9goire who led the way around the final corner and launched the sprint with 200 metres to go. He had no equal in the final burst for the line, with Lemmen following in his wheel.<\/p>\n Lemmen faded in the final metres as Gr\u00e9goire celebrated his 14th career victory and second in two years at the Tour de Suisse, while Camprub\u00ed came through to nab second place ahead of the Dutchman.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Four seconds later, Poga\u010dar crossed the line with his attacking companion Vacek, the pair taking eighth and sixth, having bridged across to the breakaway riders just a touch too late.<\/p>\n “It was a really hard day. We managed really well with the team in the breakaway, and we are really happy with this victory,” Gr\u00e9goire said after the stage.<\/p>\n “We couldn’t do anything [about the chasers]. We just went full gas, we couldn’t accelerate, so we just had to wait and wish he won’t be able to come back. Finally, it was close, but we did it.<\/p>\n “It’s a race I like a lot. The profiles are really good for me. it’s a time of the year where I have good legs, so it’s good.”<\/p>\n The stage result \u2013 eighth place, Poga\u010dar’s worst result of the season in 13 race days \u2013 means he extends his overall lead, despite missing out on his second win in as many days.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Having led overnight by 2:22 from Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), he extended his lead by 28 seconds in Locarno, with the remainder of the GC hopefuls crossing the line 32 seconds down.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar’s new lead lies at 2:50 to Carapaz, while Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) is in third place at 3:07 down.<\/p>\n How it unfolded<\/p>\n The second stage of the Tour de Suisse started and ended in Locarno, with 157.7km and three classified climbs lying along the route. The day began with an ascent of Monte Ceneri (5.3km at 6.3%) with a large flat section in the middle and then two more climbs \u2013 Fanghi (3.5km at 7%) and Orselina (1.4km at 8.9%) \u2013 lying inside the final 20km.<\/p>\n Several attacks flew before Monte Ceneri, including from Alec Segaert (Bahrain Victorious), Orluis Aular (Movistar), and Paul Lapeira (Groupama-FDJ United). That didn’t go clear, however, and so another group including Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Enric Mas (Movistar), and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) went on the climb.<\/p>\n After 30km of racing, things were all together again as the break was caught, though soon afterwards another move went with 14 riders getting away.<\/p>\n Giro d’Italia pink jersey wearer Afonso Eul\u00e1lio (Bahrain Victorious) was up there, as were a host of other notable names, including Filippo Zana (Soudal-QuickStep), Romain Gr\u00e9goire (Groupama-FDJ United), Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek), Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor).<\/p>\n The breakaway riders raced out to a three minute lead during the middle of the stage as the team of race leader Tadej Poga\u010dar, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, controlled the peloton with EF Education-EasyPost and Lidl-Trek lined up behind them.<\/p>\n \n The breakaway on stage 2 (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n At 50km to go, the break’s lead stood at 2:30 and remained largely the same over the next 20km.\u00a0 The speed was high all day as the riders raced along at 47kph, the stage on track for being one of the quickest in Tour de Suisse history.<\/p>\n Netcompany-Ineos, Jayco-AlUla, and Decathlon-CMA CGM moved to the front of the peloton as the first of the closing climbs, Fanghi, loomed. Meanwhile, the break hit the hill with a lead of 2:10.<\/p>\n Zana pushed the pace from the break on the early slopes as Alaphilippe followed, and riders behind dropped, and UAE retook control of the peloton. Brandon McNulty’s efforts saw the gap swiftly drop to 1:30.<\/p>\n By the top of the climb, 13.5km from the line, 14 breakaway riders had been reduced to just five as Zana, Eul\u00e1lio, and Lemmen were joined by Emiel Verstrynge (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Finlay Pickering (Jayco-AlUla). Behind, Poga\u010dar moved to the front on the descent as the gap to the break closed to under a minute.<\/p>\n \n Tadej Poga\u010dar (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n The breakaway survivors battled on up the steep slopes of Orselina, but behind them, Poga\u010dar and his teammate Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez launched from the peloton with Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) in tow. At the top, 8km from the finish, the gap lay at 30 seconds, seemingly too much for the chasers to make up.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar and Vacek caught Eul\u00e1lio on the way down, while Gr\u00e9goire and Marcel Camprub\u00ed (Pinarello-Q36.5) joined up with the leaders. The six-man leading group then pushed on into Locarno, where they would do battle in the fight for the line after 120km at the head of the race.<\/p>\n The chasers edged closer and closer to the break, but it was too little, too late for Poga\u010dar and Vacek, who could only watch as Gr\u00e9goire celebrated up ahead.<\/p>\n Results<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The early breakaway survived to score victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse, with Romain Gr\u00e9goire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-645685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/flexiimages\/gmvwmhupgi1715762145.svg\")
<\/p>\n![\"LOCARNO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZM4xZPR9PXkFvtys4WybtM.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"LOCARNO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SHXvG8WjyyEzi7VPdrABUX.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n