Slovakia’s Peter Sagan surged in the short final uphill sprint on Wednesday to win the windy fourth stage of the Tour of California and close in on overall leader Tom Skujins of Latvia.
After finishing second in the first three stages, Sagan — the Tinkoff-Saxo rider who has four Tour de France stage victories — raced to his 12th career stage victory in California. He finished the 173km leg from Pismo Beach to Avila Beach in 4 hours, 6 minutes, 56 seconds.
“I never looked back,” Sagan said.
Photo: AFP
“I was just in the group and I trust my teammate. He bring me on the front for the last corner left,” he said.
Skujins, the Hincapie Sportswear Development Team rider who won the third stage, had a 22 second lead over Sagan after finishing 67th in the peloton. Sagan gained 10 bonus seconds for the stage win.
“It was pretty big for us,” Skujins said. “It was pretty hard because it was windy, but we kept it in check and [Etixx-]Quick Step did a lot of work for us, which was awesome. It worked out for us, so all is well. We’ll see what happens with the time trial and the weather.”
Rain was forecast for yesterday’s stage 5 and snow in Big Bear Lake could force the relocation of today’s individual time trial for the men’s field and the women’s invitational time trial scheduled on the same day.
Canada’s Rob Britton of Team SmartStop remained third overall, 43 seconds back.
Drapac Professional Cycling rider Wouter Wippert of the Netherlands was second in the stage, about two bike lengths behind. Britain’s Mark Cavendish of Etixx-Quick Step, the winner of the first two stages, was third.
Sagan came around the final corner in sixth position, but he made his sudden move with about 150m left and swiftly passed Italian Daniel Oss, who had moved into a solo lead.
“Mark Cavendish was behind me, maybe I did some turns better, and from the last corner I just sprinted. I’m very happy,” said Sagan, who did two small wheelies as he crossed the line.
Sagan, who had not won a race since March 16, claimed 10 races last year. He was criticized by his team owner earlier this season.
An early breakaway group of five built as much as a 3:10 advantage. The peloton steadily narrowed it to 45 seconds with about 32km left.
Greg Daniel of the US bolted into a solo breakaway and stretched his margin to 30 seconds with about 19km left, but the peloton, which earlier caught the rest of the breakaway leaders, absorbed him about 5km later.
The eight-day event was due to continue yesterday with 154km ride from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita.
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