My first time at the Tour de Suisse: from Beat Breu to Bryan Coquard

Three hours of fun, two minutes of sport. If you were a cynic and a spectator at the finish line you could sum up the second stage of the 87th Tour de Suisse in six words. However, this wouldn’t do justice to the spectacle at the finish of this TdS stage. The opposite in fact.

When the pros are still around 70 kilometres from the finish, for the first time things get serious on the home straight. Little ones give their all on balance bikes to sprint over 200 metres to the finish line. Spectacular falls and sore knees follow. Tears are shed and parents pick them up again. But, in the end, everyone crosses the line with a smile on their face and is welcomed by Tour mascot «Tourli».

Hit those pedals!

Meanwhile, the field’s still 50 kilometres away from Regensdorf and the leading group ride ahead on a short leash with a lead of around three minutes. It’ll come down to a bunch sprint which wasn’t Beat Breu’s strength. The «mountain flea» won the Tour de Suisse twice and, after his professional career, tried his hand at the oldest trade in the world – comedy and music. «Trampe, trampe!», which roughly translates as hit those pedals, from 1998 blares out of the loudspeakers.

The Tour de Suisse isn’t just one of the country’s most important sporting events, but also a piece of Swiss cultural history.

Just over an hour to go until the showdown in Regensdorf.

Fancy a sample?

Then the advertising convoy rolls in with their samples. Key rings, sun cream, cleaning products for sunglasses and more. While the field now mercilessly chase the breakaway, the sponsors’ vehicles take it easy and chug towards the finish line at snail’s pace. You could almost feel a little unsettled by the calmness of the advertising convoy as the professional cyclists speed through the Zurich Unterland at over 50 km/h.

The last kilometres

Suddenly everything happens very quickly. The advertising convoy has made way in time, the last samples have been distributed. Now the focus is definitely on sport. The commentator gives the latest details about the race. The four-rider breakaway group is caught, but the final phase is very hectic after a crash in the field 18 kilometres before the finish. As a result of the crash, the sprinter teams seem unable to position themselves as they’d like to.

The tension rises, along with my heart rate. Moms and dads take their children off the advertising boards along the finishing straight so no little legs can get in the way and bring a rider down. The sponsors in the advertising convoy are meticulous in picking up every last sample off the ground. Since that could also end badly for the riders. One kilometre to go.

A bunch sprint that somehow isn’t one

And so, at the end of the longest stage of this year’s Tour de Suisse, after 177 kilometres, there’s the expected bunch sprint in Regensdorf, which somehow doesn’t feel like one. Bad luck strikes again. At the worst moment, when the Belgian Arnaud de Lie (Lotto Dstny) wants to start his sprint, the chain comes off the front sprocket.

And the man to benefit from the mishap is Frenchman Bryan Coquard from Team Cofidis, who confidently rides the sprint home. What’s that saying again about the sorrow of one and the joy of the other? In the winner’s interview after, Coquard talks about the greatest success of his career to date.

Live at the Tour de Suisse for the first time

Today was my first time at the Tour de Suisse. Two years ago, a stage of this very race passed just a few metres from my front door. After a few seconds, the field had whizzed past and I disappeared back inside.

This time everything was different. In the finish area in Regensdorf, Tourli the fox, was on the move. Sports eyewear manufacturer React invited me to the race and I was there for three hours, the time flew by. If you’ve never attended the Tour de Suisse live and are interested in cycling, I highly recommend a visit. The Tour de Suisse continues until Sunday 16 June.

PS: The only downside: the swarm of cars around the finish after the stage. It’d be nice to see a little more cycling or public transport and a little less driving.

Move outside your own bubble and get involved in new experiences. Is Alpine wrestling old-fashioned, baseball boring and boxing more show than sport? Every now and then, I try to get to the bottom of questions like these. You can see what I’ve previously written about below: