Larry Warbasse claimed stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse on Tuesday as the last survivor of the early breakaway, earning Aqua Blue Sport its first ever WorldTour victory.
Forty seconds later, BMC's Damiano Caruso, who several kilometres prior had been among the first GC hopefuls to try an attack on the final climb, led a select group of overall contenders across the summit finish line. That propelled him into the race leader's yellow jersey. LottoNL-Jumbo's Steven Kruijswijk finished just behind Caruso for third on the day, slotting into second overall.
Warbasse put in plenty of work over the final 50 kilometres to dispatch his breakaway companions, setting a hard tempo on the day's first climb to drop Astana's Lars Boom and then pushing the pace on the steep finishing climb to Villars-sur-Ollon to drop Nick van der Lijke (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) and Antoine Duchesne (Direct Energie). Continuing on solo, he held off the GC group to nab his first ever pro victory.
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"It’s my first victory in my career - it’s amazing," an overjoyed Warbasse said. "I love this race, I love Switzerland. I was on IAM Cycling the last two years, and it’s one of the most beautiful countries and I have so many great memories here. Today I felt like it was my home race. I’ve never had so many people cheering for me, everyone was yelling my name. I’m really happy.
"As soon as I got in the breakaway (I knew I could win) - I told everyone yesterday, I worked really hard the whole last season - I always give 110%, I’m just so happy it finally paid off."
The battle for the yellow jersey proved to be the undoing of several pre-race favourites, with defending champion Miguel Ángel López (Astana) and three-time former winner Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) losing time, and Bahrain-Merida's Ion Izagirre and Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin among the many names coming home several minutes down.
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