Sagan wins Tour of California on time bonus

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Mark Cavendish gave the Etixx-QuickStep team its fifth stage win of the Tour of California on the final stage to Pasadena, but it was a hollow victory as his teammate Juilan Alaphilippe was overthrown from the race lead by Peter Sagan, who threw his bike to take third on the stage by mere millimeters - thus securing enough bonus seconds to win the overall race.

"We’ve had a successful week here," Cavendish said. "We’ve been on the podium everyday with myself or Julian. We’ve got five stage wins, more than half of the stages. We rode hard to get that success. Having the yellow jersey two or three stages is nice, with second in GC. So we’re happy. To lose it by milimteres is not nice, but Peter deserves the win. He’s a worthy winner of the Tour of California."

Sagan never came into the Tour of California with aspirations for the overall, but after the time trial was moved from snowy Big Bear down to Santa Clarita and reduced to 10.6km, Sagan blasted around the course to unexpectedly win the test. He followed that remarkable win with a gutsy performance on Mt. Baldy, where he lost the jersey to Alaphilippe by only two seconds.

During the final 105km stage, Sagan nudged the young Frenchman by one second in the intermediate sprint, setting up the final showdown at the finish, where the Slovakian champion had to battle all of the sprinters to get into the top three.

As Cavendish and Wouter Wippert (Drapac) sprinted away to the stage win and second place, It looked as if MTN-Qhubeka's Tyler Farrar would beat Sagan to the line and deny him the race overall, but Sagan found just a little extra and threw his bike to take third by a hair.

"I almost thought that I didn't do it," Sagan said at the finish line. "Farrar was third, I thought, but after my team said that I was third, and I came here [to the podium] and I can't believe that I did it. I have to say thank you to all my teammates because they did very good work."

"It was very hard [to get this victory]. I did another surprise, for me, from the effort yesterday and I believed that I could do it today. I'm very happy for the victory today. I'm very happy because I never thought about going for the general classification at the Tour of California. This year it was very hard to finish on the climb... I lost only 47 seconds for the first and I got some bonuses at other stages and that was good for me. 

"I'm very happy to win the Tour of California, also because this year I lost the green jersey, so I had to do something here to get on the podium."

Alaphilippe was consoled with the best young rider's jersey and second place overall, with Team Sky's Sergio Henao in third. "We could always do more to win it but hats off to Tinkoff, they rode strong, they rode hard today, especially Peter," Cavendish said.

Daniel Oss (BMC) secured the mountains classification, Cavendish won the points jersey, Hincapie's Oscar Clark was named the race's most aggressive rider and Team Sky was top team overall.

How it unfolded

The day started with QuickStep immediately going on the attack, sending Yves Lampaert up the road in a solo move. Team Sky’s Danny Pate jumped out of the bunch next to track down the solo leader, and he was soon joined in the chase by Lampaert’s teammate Matteo Trentin, Ruben Zepuntke (Cannondale-Garmin), Jacques Janse van Rensburg (MTN - Qhubeka).

The chasers quickly linked up with Lampaert to form a group of five in the front.

“It was just more for the stage,” Pate said of his early escape. “We knew [Tinkoff] were trying to control and it had been hard for them. I was just trying to take an opportunity.”

The move never made if off of the opening circuits in downtown Los Angeles, however, the field was back together as the peloton started the short trip to Pasadena for the finishing circuits around the Rose Bowl Stadium.

The bunch approached the intermediate sprint together, and the speed kicked up to full throttle as the sprinters made their way down the long, flat stretch to the line. Cavendish easily took the win there, with the more important battle for the GC playing out behind him.

Sagan’s second place ahead of Alaphilippe whittled the gap between them down to just one second, leaving the general classification up to the time bonuses on offer at the finish.

Attacks went up the road again after the finish, with Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies’ Jesse Anthony gaining ground along with Hincapie’s Oscar Clarke and BMC’s Manuel Senni.

But with so much at stake at the finish, the moves were never going to get anywhere. When the field brought back the trio of escapees, more riders countered, and countered again. Sagan was isolated in the final few circuits, but he chased down any riders who may have wanted to grab the stage glory that would have also denied the Tinkoff leader the time bonuses he needed to take the overall.

QuickStep attacked again with two laps to go of the Rose Bowl finishing circuits, but Sagan nullified the moves. The attacks were merciless over the final laps, but so was the pace, and nobody could get an advantage.

The sprinters’ teams shiffled on and off the front over the final lap, with Sagan jumping early in the last kilometre. Cavendish had Alaphilippe on his wheel, but the Frenchamn couldn't hang with the world’s fastest man and was washed away as the sprinters jumped.

Cavendish and Wippert were able to come over Sagan to the front of the race, and Farrar had a slight advantage over Sagan as the line approached. But the Slovakian champion threw his bike ahead of the American by mere millimetres at the line to secure the four-second time bonus and three-second overall win ahead of Alaphilippe.

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