Sagan sizzles in Clovis

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Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) won his fourth stage in as many days at the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday. Sagan sprinted to victory at the end the tour's longest day, 209.6km from Sonora to Clovis, ahead of Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Barracuda) and Michael Matthews (Rabobank).

"I didn't think I would get another victory," Sagan said. "But after the last climb my teammate Daniel Oss said, 'We win another stage today.' I said 'I don't think so.' After he said this, inside me I said yeah, OK we will try, and we did. Now we are very happy and thank you for all my team."

Collecting another 10 seconds worth of a finishing time bonus, Sagan also extended his overall race lead. An attack in the closing kilometres by Garmin-Barracuda's David Zabriskie mirrored the team's tactic on Stage 3, where Nathan Haas imposed a gap on the front of the bunch, upsetting the Liquigas-Cannondale lead out. But once again Sagan could not be foiled and Haussler was runner-up for the fourth stage in a row.

"I felt really good during the stage," Haussler said. "I was comfortable on the climbs and the team had another strong day despite the brutal heat. Sagan's the fastest guy at the moment, and he proved it again today. We've got one more opportunity for a sprint and I'm very motivated, but there's still some serious racing to get through for the next few stages."

Marcel Kittel's Argos-Shimano teammates also did their turn at the front, with Roger Kluge the benefactor, fifth over the line. Powerhouse Daniel Oss inflicted the damage for his teammate, and Sagan moved to the front with Haussler again on his wheel.

How it unfolded:

The longest day of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California was also the first of the truly hot days, with temperatures topping 90 degrees (F) and the sun beating down on the peloton. The 209.6 kilometres and six classified climbs were no doubt the toughest the peloton faced so far in the race.

"Today was very hard day," Sagan said. "Also the weather is very hot and always in the climbs I put on my head the water because it was very hot. [The heat] is not good for me."

The attacks came immediately after the two-mile neutral roll out, but the day's major breakaway took longer to establish than on the previous stages. Despite the oppressive heat, Stijn Vandenbergh (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Yannick Eijssen (BMC) and Bradley White (UnitedHealthcare) were feeling peppy enough to have a go in a breakaway before the bottom of the day's first major climb, but their move was not quite strong enough to stay clear and they were absorbed before the ascent began.

Mountains classification leader Sebastian Salas (Optum) jumped away from another small group that was just off the front of the bunch take the maximum points on the climb, extending his lead ahead of Spidertech's David Boily. But Salas wasn't able to add any more points to his tally as he fell back to the peloton while the day's longest breakaway went clear.

"There was a lot of talk about today being the big day [for the mountains classification]," he said. "I went for the first KOM and tried to get in the move, but none of the teams were letting me get up the road in another breakaway. As chance would have it, Boily wasn't able to get as many points today, so I increased my buffer on him."

Eleven riders were in the big break that stuck for much of the day, including Markel Irizar Aranburu and Benjamin King
(RadioShack-Nissan), Dries Devenyns (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Yannick Eijssen (BMC Racing Team), Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank Cycling Team), Alex Howes (Garmin-Barracuda), Timothy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale), Wesley Sulzberger (Orica GreenEdge), Mikael Cherel (AG2R La Mondiale), Darwin Atapuma Hurtado and Carlos Julian Quintero (Colombia-Coldeportes).

Eijssen said the breakaway's make-up doomed it's chances early on.

"We started the day with the motivation of helping my team out," he said. "But once we got up there the selection of the group wasn't very good to make it to the finish. All the big teams [were present], and tactics made it that we were caught back."

King and Irizar were two of the riders in the move who didn't contribute because of the tactics going on behind.

"Everyone understood that we couldn't work because our team was pulling in the peloton," King said. "And also the Liquigas rider couldn't work because his team has the yellow jersey. Everyone else was willing to ride. It came back pretty quickly, but that's just because our team wanted to shut it down before the flat section so we didn't have to ride on the flats."

The group's gap went up to 5:25, but in the sawtooth-profiled section along highway 49 they lost Quintero and their impetus and had only 1:20 on the day's fifth climb.

The sixth-and-final climb of the day spelled the end of the breakaway, and a second move went on the ascent with George Bennett (RadioShack-Nissan), Thomas Peterson (Garmin-Barracuda) and Michael Rodriguez Galindo (Colombia-Coldeportes) were soon joined by Bram Tankink (Rabobank), Mikael Cherel (AG2R La Mondiale) and Brian Vandborg (Spidertech Powered By C10), but with the long downhill run to the finish on the other side of the hill, Liquigas-Cannondale pegged back the leaders and went to work setting up the sprint for another Sagan victory.

First UnitedHealthcare, with Johnny Clarke, and then Garmin-Barracuda's David Zabriskie tried to foil the sprinters with
late-race breakaways, but Argos-Shimano was keen to get a result after striking out all week so far and the Dutch team nailed it back.

"There was just a bit of a hill and a bit of hesitation in the bunch," Clarke said. "I asked Rory Sutherland whether I should have an attack, and he said, 'Why not, have a try.' You have to try sometimes."

The field let both Clarke and then Zabriske dangle off the front for a brief time before Omega Pharma-Quickstep took the lead to set up Tom Boonen, but he was soon left behind as Sagan surged for the line on the Belgian's right to take the seventh Tour of California stage win of his brief career.

Although Sagan padded his race lead again in Clovis, the 22-year-old Slovakian rider said he expected to lose the jersey during the stage 5 time trial Thursday in Bakersfield.

"Tomorrow I think I will lose this jersey," Sagan said. "I will do bye bye. I don't time trial well. Maybe I try when I feel good on Big Bear for another stage, but we will see."

Another stage win would set the record at the Tour of California. Sagan is currently tied with Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) with seven. Can Sagan win a fifth stage this year and set a new record?

"Today we said before the stage, three is good, another one is better," he said. "The team was tired, and today we don't want to work for the win. If someone was going to take over the general classification it didn't matter to us."

But Sagan said he did like the idea of returning to California next year to raise the bar even further.

"I like California, I like America," he said. "Maybe next year I come another time and win another stage. Maybe this is not the record."

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