It was an aggressive Aitor Gonzalez (Euskaltel – Euskadi) who took the overall title of the 69th edition of the Tour de Suisse. Showing the same willingness to attack – and to gamble – he displayed Saturday, Gonzalez won the ninth and final stage on Sunday by 45 seconds, more than the 36 seconds he needed to surpass Michael Rogers (QuickStep) in the general classification.

“In the first climb I wasn’t sure of my legs, but I was confident after that,” said Gonzalez. “I crossed the line and I thought it was great to have won the stage, but that I could only hope to win the whole tour.”

Second place in the 841-kilometer race goes to Rogers (at 0:22) and third to T-Mobile’s Jan Ullrich (at 1:36). Rogers made a solid effort to catch Gonzalez at the end, but it was too little too late.

“I’m happy with my Tour de Suisse,” said Ullrich in a brief statement before disappearing into his team’s bus. “It was a beautiful race, and it was good preparation for the Tour de France, which was what I intended.”

Ullrich admits that he didn’t attack the way he will have to in the upcoming Tour de France, but is confident that he has time to prepare now and be peaking at the right moment. The German exhausted himself to win the Tour of Switzerland last year by just one second.

No rider has won the race in back-to-back years since American Andy Hampsten did it in 1986 and 1987.

Gonzalez escaped the peloton on the brutal final climb and caught the breakaway group that had been leading by a minute at the bottom of that climb. When Rogers finally broke away to go after him, Ullrich chose not to follow.

Gonzalez was ultimately able to pack another minute onto his lead over the others before cresting the Furka pass and starting the 24-kilometer descent into the small town of Ulrichen. When Rogers came over that peak a minute behind, he pedaled as hard as he could to catch up with the Spaniard, but to no avail.

The day before, Rogers had mentioned how impressed he was with Gonzalez, who on Saturday’s climbing stage had jumped from seventh to fourth in the general classification on the second-to-last stage, going from 1:38 behind Rogers to just 36 seconds.FULL RESULTS

Rogers had said the day before that “everyone is tired,” but Sunday's course was far more difficult than the eight preceding courses. Riders made a 100km circuit around the 3100-meter high Pizzo Rotundo. They climbed three separate hors categorie climbs: the Nufenen Pass, the cobblestone climb up the Gotthard Pass and the 2,431-meter Furka Pass.

Sunday’s edition of the country’s largest German-language daily, Blick, ran a large picture of Rogers slumped in exhaustion on his bike with a humorous play on words… “Torture de Suisse.”

The day before the race, after huffing up a steep climb to Verbier, Ullrich said that he was happy not to be facing a mountaintop finish. “It will probably be easy on the first two mountains, and then we’ll see what happens,” he said. By the end of the first two mountains, Ullrich was tight on Roger’s wheel. The two riders led the peloton, who in turn were just over a minute behind a group of three in front: Koldo Gil (Liberty Seguros), Beat Zberg (Gerolsteiner) and Daniel Atienza (Cofidis).

Rogers took the yellow jersey away from Ullrich on the mountainous sixth stage of the race and held on to it for the next three days. But Rogers only had a twenty second lead on Ullrich that whole time, so ultimately he may have been doing Ullrich a favor in drawing away at least some of the media attention that is focused on the German.

“We have 200 interview requests open now,” said a spokesman for the T-Mobile team. With the exception of some very brief conversations at the finish line, Ullrich has been inaccessible for the week.

Over the course of the next week he will train near his home in Switzerland. On Wednesday he will be part of the T-Mobile Tour de France team presentation in Bonn, Germany.

Results - Stage 9
1. Aitor Gonzalez (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 100.4 km in 3:03:52 (32.763kph)
2. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC, 0:46
3. Daniel Atienza (Sp), Cofidis, 0:48
4. Michael Rogers (Aus), Quickstep
5. Chris Horner (USA), Saunier Duval
6. Leonardo Piepoli (I), Saunier Duval
7. Beat Zberg (Swi), Gerolsteiner, 1:42
8. Alexandre Moos (Swi), Phonak
9. Tadej Valjavec (SLO), Phonak
10. Koldo Gil Perez (Sp), Liberty Seguros
FULLRESULTSFinal Overall
1. Aitor Gonzalez (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi,1354.60 km in 33:08:51 (40.862 kph)
2. Michael Rogers (Aus), Quickstep, 0:22
3. Jan Ullrich (G), T-Mobile, 1:36
4. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC, 1:41
5. Chris Horner (USA), Saunier Duval, 2:02
6. Koldo Gil Perez (Sp), Liberty Seguros, 2:49
7. Beat Zberg (Swi), Gerolsteiner, 3:47
8. Bradley Mc Gee (Aus), Francaise des Jeux, 4:13
9. Tadej Valjavec (SLO), Phonak, 4:28
10. Leonardo Piepoli (I), Saunier Duval, 6:01
FULLRESULTS

---

Check back soon for complete results, photos from AFP and a stage report from VeloNews's Nate Vinton.