Recon Ride: Tour de Suisse - Podcast

The Tour de Suisse might not have quite the calibre of yellow jersey contenders on its start list as its French counterpart, the Critérium du Dauphiné, but the dearth of Tour de France podium hopefuls comes with a few advantages. For one thing, it means that many of the top names in Switzerland – and there are plenty – will be focused squarely on actually winning the race or a few of its stages, rather than simply building their form for next month.

One of of those likely Tour de Suisse GC contenders, Bahrain-Merida's Ion Izagirre, joined the Recon Ride to offer some insight on his form and his expectations for the event he came within 12 seconds of winning last year. He'll aim to turn last year's runner-up performance into an overall victory in 2017, but it won't be easy. Giro winner Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing), Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), Miguel Ángel López (Astana) and Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) are among the other potential GC threats set to attend.

Beyond the general classification conversation, the list of riders set to hunt stages in Switzerland is very strong. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) has won at least one stage in the race every year since 2011, and he'll look to extend that trend through the 2017 edition, while Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) should be the class of the pure sprinters in attendance.