141 riders started today's 171 kilometres long seventh stage after Quickstep's Giovanni Visconto decided
not to start todays stage from Gruyères to Lyss. The hilly stage had three fourth category climbs, the last one with only five kilometres to go.
After the start Marcus Burghardt Team Columbia), Markus Zberg (Gerolsteiner), and Volksbank's Daniel Musiol took off
woth 5 more riders but the bunch did not let them go.
After 20 kilometres a 18 men strong group took off. One of the riders in the group was Thomas Lökvist (Team Columbia),
the Schwedish rider was fifth overall and only 56 seconds behind overall leader and teammate Kim Kirchen so the other teams
had to chase them down. Stuart O'Grady (CSC - Saxo Bank) knew that the bunch would not let the group go and attacked out of
the breakaway group but soon O'Grady and the 17 men behind him were caught by the bunch.
After the escapees were caught the next surprise was an attack by Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas). Kreuziger was second overall
and only 27 seconds behind Kirchen. Ronny Scholz (Gerolsteiner), Johan Van Summeren (Silence-Lotto) and Sébastien Rosseler
(Quick Step) joined Kreuziger. At first Kirchen's Team Columbia (High Road) did not react and at some point the escapees
had a lead of 3 minutes on the bunch. But Kreuziger stopped his attack and waited for the bunch. The other escapees continued
their attack and with 100 kilometres to go they had a lead of 4:09 on the bunch.
The maximum lead of the breakaway group was almost 5 minutes (with 70 kilometres to go). But the sprinter teams started
to organise the chase and the lead started to drop. The escapees were caught before the final climb and the sprinter teams
started to prepare the mass sprint.
Silence - Lotto's Leif Hoste attacked on the final climb. Hoste passed the top first, followed by Maxim Iglinsky
(Astana) and David Loosli (Lampre). That was enough for Iglinsky to take over the lead in the mountain classification.
Iglinsky and Loosli waited for the bunch and CSC - Saxo Bank's Fabian Cancellara and Markus Fothen started a counter attack.
Fothen was nineth overall, 1:09 behind Kirchen and Team Columbia tried to chase the escapees down. As the bunch didn't manage
to come closer to the leading trio (Cancellara and Fothen bridged-up to Hoste), Kirchen took of from the bunch to chase down
the race leaders. Philippe Gilbert (Francaise des Jeux) joined Kirchen.
Kirchen and Gilbert caught the race leaders and the pack came back to the group as well. Cancellara attacked again with
5 kilometres to go and that was the beginning of a spectacular solo ride by the Swiss rocket. Cancellara had a lead of only
a few seconds and started the final kilometre with a lead of 6 seconds.
The CSC - Saxo Bank rider won the stage with a lead of 2 seconds on the bunch. Erik Zabel (Milram) won the bunch spint
and Robbie McEwen (Silence - Lotto) finioshed third. In the overall there were no major changes, Kim Kirchen defended his
yellow jersey.
The Tour de Suisse will continue tomorrow with the 25 kilometres long eight stage, a mountain time trial from Altdorf
to Klausenpass. The battle for the overall win of this yeras edition of the race probebly will be decided tomorrow. Click here to see the profile of stage 8.
