With a powerful sprint finish after a hectic finale to the fourth stage of the Eneco Tour, Peter Sagan took another win, his second in two days, with a bike throw to the line deciding the victor. Peter held off the charge from behind on the headwind finish, timing his lunge to perfection to take the win and the 10 second bonus that moves him into the overall race lead, by seven seconds.
After finding out that he was indeed the stage winner, Peter told us: “I didn’t know I’d won because it was very close with André and after I was waiting for the final result, but I’m very happy with the win because it’s another case of very good timing with the headwind finish. It was a nervous sprint at the end and I had to hold my line next to Démare, but that’s sprinting.
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s team time trial, Peter added: “I’m happy, it’s good that I got some more seconds from today. We want to make a good team time trial and do our best and we’ll see how it goes.”
The day’s break initially started with two before two more jumped across the gap in the early stages of the race. With Peter so close to the top of the GC, Tinkoff was one of the teams that helped control the peloton, but the catch came earlier than expected with still over 50km to race. From here the attacks came thick and fast, with several groups moving clear and the guys needing to stay attentive to what moves were going up the road. To make things more difficult, the race had entered the tough finishing circuit with cobblestones and two climbs to negotiate.
Eventually, two riders pulled clear and the pace was fast but controlled behind for the last 30km. These two swept up the golden kilometre bonus seconds before being caught in the final kilometres from which point another hectic sprint unravelled.
Holding his position in the line, then jumping at just the right moment, Peter was able to power clear and timed it to perfection to hold off a fast closing André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) from behind, giving him his third win in five days.
“From this morning we had a plan that meant that we’d need to work as we’re close in GC – everyone had to take their responsibility, so we put guys in front,” explained Sport Director, Tristan Hoffman from the finish. “When we hit the cobblestones the break came close again. Then other teams pushed on and caught the break a long way out so it was a hard race from then on.
“The boys did a good job to control, then it came back together at the end and we saw another super sprint from Peter. After his crash yesterday, Michael Valgren survived today – he was hurting but he’s getting better and hopefully he can be in good shape for tomorrow. The time trial is 20km – I don’t expect huge time differences, but it could go either way. There are other teams that are favourites but the boys are focused and I think we have some good horsepower to get a result.”
As well as taking the white jersey of race leader, Peter extends his lead in the points classification with three stages remaining.
Race Result
1. Peter Sagan (SVK) Tinkoff 4:44:12
2. André Greipel (GER) Lotto Soudal +00:00:00
3. Alexander Kristoff (NOR) Katusha +00:00:00
4. Arnaud Démare (FRA) FDJ +00:00:00
5. Dylan Groenewegen (NED) Team LottoNL – Jumbo +00:00:00
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