Meeus roars as Red Bull tame escape quartet

Jordi Meeus of Red Bull-Bora won stage six of the Tour of Switzerland after his team led a last-gasp hunt for a tough breakaway at Neuhausen's dramatic waterfalls on Friday.

Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea retained the overall race lead with two challenging stages remaining.

On this warm-up race for July's Tour de France, sprints are thin on the ground. Instead, the peloton is spending eight days racing through Swiss hills.

Attempts to catch the robust escape were hindered because several teams lacked interest as three heavy rollers – Harry Sweeny, Mauro Schmid and Stefan Kung – raced ahead of the pack all day.

But Red Bull, Quick Step and Tudor galvanised enough late support to catch the trio in the final kilometre of the 187km ride to the picture-postcard town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall.

In the dash for the line Meeus, the son of a footballer, edged Davide Ballerini and Lewis Askey for only his second World Tour win.

The peloton sizzled in the heat again Friday and the mercury is set to climb above 32 degrees Celsius over the weekend.

The Tour is likely to go to the wire as Saturday's stage concludes with a 3km climb at 9 per cent gradient and Sunday's decider is a mountainous individual time-trial, 9.2km also at 9 per cent.