Tour de Suisse: Sagan wins stage 2 in Baar

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Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) showed he is on form and has plenty of sprinting speed in his legs as the Tour de France approaches by dominating the sprint after some intense racing on the often rain-soaked rolling circuit in Baar. It was Sagan's twelfth stage win at the Tour de Suisse of his career and so gave him the record for the number of stage victories in the Swiss race.

The world champion was dropped off by his teammates in the final kilometres and did the rest on his own. He sat tight on the Orica-GreenEdge lead out and then in sight of the line he jumped before Michael Matthews made his move, closing the door on the Australia. Behind, a split in the peloton had left Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep) stuck behind and so his leadout man Max Richeze had to fight for victory and finished in Sagan's slipstream. Matthews was a disappointed third.

Provisional results showed that the most of the peloton finished only seven riders finished in the same time. Everyone else was at least three seconds back. However Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) finished fifth, in the same time as Sagan, and so took the race lead from Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo). Cancellara is now one second back, with Sagan moving up to fourth at 10 seconds.

"As the only rider to have twelve victories, it’s nice! It wasn’t my objective when I first started racing here to set out to do that, but year by year I’ve taken victories, so it’s a good feeling," Sagan said after setting the new Tour de Suisse stage winning record. "There was a lot of stress in the group that I didn’t like, and it can be a bit boring riding so far to contest just a few final kilometres. Even though it’s a tough year this year, I’m hoping to see it through to the end – although maybe in the grupetto on the harder stages! It’s better to race than to be at home training!"

How it happened

The 187km stage was he road stage of this year and covered four undulating laps of 47km around Baar. It was a festival atmosphere only dampened by the rain that would also cause some crashes and nervous racing.

However the weather didn't discourage the riders from attacking right from the start. After numerous attempts, four riders finally got a gap and formed the early breakaway of the day. The four were Marcel Wyss (IAM Cycling), Sébastien Minard (AG2R La Mondiale), Matthias Krizek (Team Roth) and Antwan Tolhoek (Roompot - Oranje Peloton). They built up a solid gap on the first of the four circuits around Baar with Trek-Segafredo riding at a steady pace for Cancellara.

In his final and farewell Tour de Suisse, Cancellara didn't want to give the breakaway any chance of succeeding and taking yellow jersey, so his teammates were constantly at the front of the peloton, making sure the gap slowly came down. As the riders started on the final 50km of the stage, the breakaway only had 1:30 advantage on the peloton.

On the last time up the 5.4km long category 2 climb, Krizek and Tolhoek went head-to-head for the climber's points again. Krizek opened the sprint and managed to keep his Dutch rival behind him, which meant the Austrian rider was awarded the blue jersey on the podium at the end of the day. The peloton crossed the top of the climb less than one minute behind the breakaway.

The break was caught early, with 35km to go, as Lotto Soudal tried to set up Roelandts for the intermediate sprint in the hope of snatching some bonus seconds. However Cancellara was determined to keep his overall lead and in the sprint the Swiss actually managed to beat Roelandts. The final sprint would decide who pulled on the leader's yellow jersey but it was not to be Cancellara's day after all.

A crash saw Andrew Talansky (Cannondale) in a pile-up along with numerous other riders as the roads turned slippery in the rain. However he got some excellent support from his teammates and managed to chase back on and not lose time. Other riders were not so lucky. Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo) crashed earlier in the race and was forced to retire.

In the finale, Orica-GreenEdge hit the front of the peloton to set up Matthews. Magnus Cort did a solid job leading out his Australian teammate but Sagan was smarter and faster. Roelandts was also in the right place after a gap opened up in the line, so he deservedly pulled on yellow for Monday's stage 192km stage from Grosswangen to Rheinfelden. 

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