Slovakian Peter Sagan won the sixth stage of the Tour of California on Friday, nabbing his second straight stage win as Australian Michael Rogers kept the overall lead.
Sagan, the 20-year-old Liquigas rider who snatched stage five in Bakersfield on Thursday, again displayed his sprinting skills and also showed he could tough it out with the climbers in the 217.7km stage that featured seven classified climbs and one stretch at an altitude of 2,500m.
At the finish in the resort of Big Bear, at an elevation of 2,000m, Sagan edged Rory Sutherland and Rogers in the final sprint. The brutal climb forced 28 riders to abandon the race.
Sagan, racing his first full season on the pro road circuit, had already won two stages of the Paris-Nice in March and another in the Tour of Romandie in May.
Thanks to a time bonus, Sagan improved one place to third in the overall standings, nine seconds behind Rogers. He pushed three-time defending champion Levi Leipheimer off the provisional podium.
“Sagan showed his class by winning two stages including the queen stage,” Rogers said. “I saw him there at the top of the last climb and started concentrating on second. A guy that’s as fast as him in the finish is always hard to beat.”
With the time bonus for third place, Rogers stretched his lead over David Zabriskie atop the overall standings to four seconds.
That set up the prospect of a duel between Rogers and Zabriskie in Saturday’s time trial seventh stage in the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
The event is North America’s most prominent cycling race, but it has been eclipsed by comments made by American Floyd Landis who has accused his former teammate Lance Armstrong of widespread doping and cover-ups this week.
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