Place Name: Stockhütte
Address: Stockhütte 1, 6376 Emmetten, Switzerland
Details: June 22, 2025
An uphill, 10KM ITT caps off an intriguing and very entertaining week of racing in Switzerland. The start is in Beckenried and the first 4KM are exactly the same as the last 4KM of yesterday's stage. A time check will be given at 4.5KM in Emmetten which are the easier kilometers at 8%. After Emmetten, the road gets steeper and the last 5.5KM are almost 10% average up to Stockhütte, which isn't much more than a few chalet's and ski lift. Since the stage is so difficult, the winner will likely come from one of the top 5 in GC and will be the one with a little extra left in the tank after seven hard racing days.
Lake Lucerne was a majestic blue but the riders were forced to turn away from the cool water for an arduous mountain test. Harry Sweeny of EF-Education EasyPost set the fastest early time, over 30 seconds ahead of the nearest finisher. Rider after rider came through the finish and none could get within 10 seconds of Sweeny. It wasn't until Felix Gall of Decathlon AG2R that Sweeny's Intermediate time was beaten. The Austrian set the best check point time, 25 seconds quicker. As the other GC riders came through the same point, Oscar Onley of Picnic-PostNL was down around 20 seconds to Gall and Julian Alaphilippe of Tudor Pro Cycling was a full minute slower. João Almeida of UAE-XRG came across just 1 second faster than Gall at the Intermediate and was soon to pass Alaphilippe on the road.
By the time race leader Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels hit the time check, he was 22 seconds down on Almeida which left him with just 11 seconds to spare for the second half of the ITT. Gall, the first of the big five to arrive at the finish, put in one of the best performances of his career, shattering Sweeny's time by 90 seconds. Onley was next to finish, 46 seconds down on Gall but it was enough to keep his spot in GC ahead of the Austrian. When Almeida crossed the line, all doubts on the stage and the overall were quelled because he finished 24 seconds ahead of Gall and stamped his name in the top spot of the GC. Vauquelin still had to come home but with 500M to go, the time had already passed to Almeida and Vauquelin had lost the race.
After Vauquelin finished, we could finally see the stage and GC picture. Almeida had won by 24 seconds to Gall and 1 minute 11 seconds to Onley. Vauquelin was fourth at 1 minute 40 seconds with the hero of the day, Harry Sweeny, in fifth at 1 minute 54 seconds. Almeida took three stage wins this week and secured the GC as well with a 1 minute 7 second margin to Vauquelin and 1 minute 58 seconds to Onley. Gall jumped over Alaphilippe for fourth at 2 minutes 20 seconds with the Frenchman settling for fifth place, 3 minutes 57 seconds behind.
Tags: Tour de Suisse, 2025, June, Stage 8, Tour de Suisse 2025, ITT, Beckenried, Stockhütte, Harry Sweeny, Felix Gall, Oscar Onley, João Almeida, Kévin Vauquelin