The UAE Emirates brought a strong team to the Tour de Suisse with Adam Yates, Joao Almeida and Isaac del Toro. UAE’s leader Adam Yates was unstoppable on Gotthardpass and was only stopped by the early breakaway in his path to victory.
It was the first big mountain top finish in the 2024 Tour de Suisse, which is loaded with climbs. Stage 4 was a hard test for climbers with Schöllenen (4.5 km, 7.5%) and Gotthardpass (8.2 km, 6.6%) combination at the end. Between both climbs, there was a 3-kilometre flat section. The peloton did Schöllenen in 19 minutes with 5.80 ᵉW/Kg. Stevie Williams right before Gotthardpass had spent 3111 kilojoules for 3:45h with 14.09 kj/kg/h, but most of the intensity was added by a previous climb.
With little recovery between the climbs, the riders in the peloton were fatigued. Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale climbing duo Felix Gall and Valentin Paret-Peintre accelerated early on the climb, but both attacks were caught. A strong tailwind made the attacking easier, but the UAE Emirates had a strong mountain train. Isaac del Toro and Wilco Kelderman crashed going up Gotthardpass, but even with a crash, Del Toro was the one to launch Adam Yates with 4 kilometres remaining on the climb.
Yates immediately opened a gap and chased after the last breakaway survivor Torstein Træen who had a huge lead over the peloton. Yates possibly did the best climbing performance of the season excluding Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard and a Top 5 effort overall behind Pogačar’s Giro d’Italia and Volta a Catalunya performances and Jonas Vingegaard effort in Tirreno-Adriatico. Yates pushed 6.58 ᵉW/Kg for 21:20 min on Gothardpass. His performance was made more impressive by the average altitude of 1797 metres above sea level. Skjelmose lost 28 seconds to him with 6.41 ᵉW/Kg, while Yates’ teammate Almeida drafted the Danish champion with 6.31 ᵉW/Kg.
Gran número de Adam, luego sus perseguidores realizaron también un ejercicio muy bueno.