Originally, eighteen ProTeams were scheduled to be invited to the race, with two other squads – IAM Cycling,[10] and Sojasun[11] – given wildcard places, and as such, would have formed the event's 20-team peloton.

[14] The Movistar Team had two previous riders among their octet; Vladimir Karpets, who won the race in 2007, served as one of the domestiques for the defending race-winner Rui Costa.

The new parcours was largely downhill to start, before flattening out; it passed through two intermediate sprint points at Sierre and Sion before reaching the first-category climb to Crans-Montana.

Movistar Team rider Enrique Sanz was joined by Ag2r–La Mondiale's Christophe Riblon, Adrián Sáez (Euskaltel–Euskadi) and Johannes Fröhlinger of Argos–Shimano made up the group,[32] and managed to accrue a maximum advantage of approaching three minutes around halfway through the stage.

[36] A fast, technical descent – with speeds reaching a maximum of around 90 km/h (56 mph)[37] – followed the summit, and brought the riders back to Meiringen, where the final 2 km (1.2 mi) of racing were flat, with straight roads.

The group started to splinter as it headed towards Meiringen for the first time, while in the peloton, Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin–Sharp), who had been lying second place overall, crashed out of the race.

[41] The nine leaders crossed the finish line in Meiringen ahead of the closing 37 km (23.0 mi) loop, and held a lead of around two minutes over the peloton.

[38] After Omega Pharma–Quick-Step's Tom Boonen led over the fourth-category precursor to the Hasliberg, the lead group thinned yet further, ultimately leaving four riders at the head of proceedings – Blanco Pro Cycling rider Wilco Kelderman, Matti Breschel (Saxo–Tinkoff), Martin Elmiger of IAM Cycling, and Orica–GreenEDGE's Michael Albasini[38] – but the remnants of the peloton were inside a minute of the group.

BMC Racing Team's pace on the front with Tejay van Garderen and Mathias Frank had reduced the group to around fifteen riders, with yellow jersey wearer Cameron Meyer (Orica–GreenEDGE) among those dropped.

The groups merged towards the top, where Breschel's team-mate Roman Kreuziger attacked clear, with Cannondale's Peter Sagan, Frank and Rui Costa of the Movistar Team bridged across.

[38] The four riders remained off the front until the finish, where Sagan out-sprinted the rest for his seventh career victory at the Tour de Suisse.

The intermediate sprint was closely followed by the second-category Rengg ascent, which was seen as a pivotal part of the route, as its steepness was certain to test some sprinters and their endurance towards the finish.

[44] From the descent, it was almost flat all the way to Buochs, save for a fourth-category kicker – the Rengglochstrasse – near Kriens; the finish was also technical, with a testing 90-degree left-hand turn with just 200 metres (660 ft) remaining.

The day's breakaway formed quickly after the start, with RadioShack–Leopard rider Jens Voigt, Robert Vrečer of Euskaltel–Euskadi and Lotto–Belisol's Olivier Kaisen going clear,[45] and causing no threat to the peloton as a whole.

Voigt and Vrečer had to momentarily stop for a closed level crossing just inside of the final 10 km (6.2 mi),[47] as their lead was cut to around thirty seconds.

This ultimately set up the sprint finish, where FDJ's Arnaud Démare reached the final left-hand turn first, and managed to fend off a quick-finishing Matthew Goss (Orica–GreenEDGE) to take the stage win.

Around two-and-a-half laps were completed of the 26.5 km (16.5 mi) circuit, with five categorised climbs (all fourth-category) and two intermediate sprints to be contested in Döttingen, prior to the finish in Leuggern itself.

[49] Inside the final kilometre,[50] the road kicked up with a 4% gradient, and was expected to favour power sprinters such as Cannondale's Peter Sagan and John Degenkolb of Argos–Shimano.

After around 18 km (11.2 mi) of racing,[51] the day's breakaway was formed; four riders went clear – Stijn Devolder of RadioShack–Leopard, Sojasun rider Cyril Lemoine, Sébastien Minard (Ag2r–La Mondiale) and Omega Pharma–Quick-Step's Serge Pauwels – and ultimately pulled clear to an advantage of almost three minutes at one point during the stage, and reached the finishing circuit with around two minutes of that gap still remaining.

[53] On the first full lap of the closing circuit, Saxo–Tinkoff rider Michael Mørkøv attacked on the Zurziberg, and managed to pull clear by around 30 seconds on the climb itself.

[59] Rast launched an opportunist move at the flamme rouge and was not chased down,[60] to take his first Tour de Suisse stage win.

[66] The group managed to build up a lead of around five-and-a-half minutes at its maximum, but was around a quarter of that by the time the leaders reached the final climb of the day, the Albula Pass.

Sánchez and Preidler were soon caught by the peloton, with the former's Blanco Pro Cycling team setting the pace on the front of the main field, as they started to close on Dombrowski.

After contesting the first intermediate sprint just outside Chur, the riders passed through the finish line in Bad Ragaz for the first time, prior to a 40 km (24.9 mi) closing loop.

[74] The second intermediate sprint came shortly after the line in Sargans, taking in several kilometres in Liechtenstein, prior to the third-category kicker at the St. Luzisteig Pass – with a maximum gradient of 12% – just 6 km (3.7 mi) from the finish.

[76] Hollenstein attacked the rest of his companions at this point, and managed to remain clear until around 17 km (10.6 mi) to go, where the peloton moved past under the impetus of the Orica–GreenEDGE team,[77] with assistance from Cannondale.

With Orica–GreenEDGE on the front, their team leader Cameron Meyer suffered a puncture prior to the final climb; the resultant time gap was too much for him to bridge back to, and he ultimately lost almost half a minute to the peloton by stage's end.

Thus, Olivier Kaisen of Lotto–Belisol,[77] who, in 151st place, trailed overall leader Mathias Frank (BMC Racing Team) by one hour, thirty minutes and forty seconds, was the first rider to set off on the stage.

Points classification winner Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and FDJ team-mates Jérémy Roy and Arnold Jeannesson all enjoyed spells at the top of the timesheets, as the best time continued to tumble.

Blanco Pro Cycling's Bauke Mollema was only eight seconds off Kangert's time,[87] while Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and Roman Kreuziger of Saxo–Tinkoff lost more than half a minute.