Pérez 2nd in Suisse stage 5

Rubén Pérez came within inches of doubling his win tally as a professional by running second in today's fifth Tour de Suisse stage.

The Euskaltel hard-man was only just beaten to the line by Katusha's Vladimir Isaychev in the sprint from the break that was allowed to contest the stage win by an apprehensive peloton. It was the 31-year-old's fourth second place in his career - win mass-sprint win in the 2012 edition of the Bayern Rundfahrt is still his sole triumph. While coming away empty handed from such a gold-tinted opportunity might be hard to take, he can at least take comfort in the fact that he put another few WorldTour points into Euskaltel's needy pocket.

Pérez is, on paper anyway, a faster finisher than the 26-year-old Russian, but just couldn't pip the un-fancied Isaychev despite reaching a higher top speed inside the last 50 metres. The line came 15 metres too early for the ever-aggressive Zaldibar-native, who also spent yesterday in the break of the day.

There were no major changes to the GC on today's calm 192,9km stage from Trimbach to Gansingen - Mikel Nieve thus remain ninth. And, by the way, the team is heading up the team classification.

Results stage five:

• (1, Vladimir Isaichev (Katusha), 4:58:28)
• 2, Rubén Pérez, s.t.
• 41, Mikel Astarloza, 11:07
• 44, Gorka Izagirre, s.t.
• 45, Igor Antón, s.t.
• 55, Mikel Nieve, s.t.
• 66, Romain Sicard, s.t.
• 100, Pablo Urtasun, s.t.
• DNF: Iván Velasco (crashed out, see earlier post)

Photo: www.velonews.com