EF Education First Pro Cycling’s Tejay van Garderen (Tacoma, Wash.) climbed 14,500 feet on the 133-mile ride from Rancho Cordova to South Lake Tahoe to overtake the Amgen Tour of California race lead from BORA-hasgrohe’s three-time World Champion Peter Sagan, on the same roads where he lost it last year to the young Columbian rider Egan Bernal.
Van Garderen now leads the race by six seconds after battling three other riders up the final climb including Deceuninck – Quick-Step’s Kasper Asgreen (DEN), who rode in three breakaways today, and ultimately surged ahead in the final meters to his first WorldTour stage win following a 2nd place finish in the Tour of Flanders this spring. Team Ineos’ Gianni Moscon (ITA), who was a factor on the hills in the latter part of the day, finished third for the stage.
“I’m super satisfied. It would have been nice to get the stage victory – I gave it a few digs and sprinted hard in the end but came up second, but I was actually surprised to get the jersey…it’s always an honor to be in yellow in the home country,” said van Garderen, who placed second in last year’s Amgen Tour of California and holds the 2013 championship.
Stage 2 presented by Visit California was the second longest day of the race at 133.3 miles, and the first day of climbing complete with 14,500 feet of elevation gain including the final upward slope to the finish at Heavenly Ski Resort.
With a little more than 50 miles to ride, EF Education First took over at the front of the peloton on the longest uphill stretch of the day and very quickly reeled back an early breakaway. Its climber Lachlan Morton (AUS), the 2017 Amgen Tour of California Best Young Rider, made a solo jump out of the pack at just over 40 miles to go, followed by a peloton split that saw many GC contenders and Sagan, who began the day in the yellow race leader jersey, fall to the secondary group.
A chase group of 14 – which contained BAHRAIN – MERIDA’s Rohan Dennis (AUS), who finished second in this race in 2014 and 2016, and Sacramento area cyclist Neilson Powless in his WorldTour team debut year with Jumbo-Visma – caught Morton before the climb up Carson Pass and held the gap until the final miles.
As some of the lead group riders began to fall back on the slopes of Luther Pass, Jumbo-Visma’s 2017 race champion George Bennett(NZL) and EF Education First’s Sergio Higuita (COL) tried to bridge to the lead group. Dennis, the current World Time Trial Champion who also hold stage winds at all three Grand Tours, drove the pace to the Sprint line coming across second to pick up valuable seconds off his overall time in the form of bonus points. Asgreen and Astana Pro Team’s Davide Ballerini (ITA) who spent a full day on the front, led the chase group on the descent.
The final uphill miles blew apart the lead group with van Garderen and teammate Taylor Phinney (USA) making their way to the front group, as well as UAE Team Emirates 20-year-old first-time team leader Tadej Pogacar (SLO), who captured the TAG Heuer Best Young Rider Jersey today.
Astana attacked on the final climb followed by van Garderen who took the lead, with Moscon, Ballerini and Asgreen close behind. On the final uphill meters, van Garderen launched a final attack that put him in the overall race lead, with Asgreen countering past him to take the stage.
“It’s my first pro win and I can’t tell you how huge this is for me, especially as it came at World Tour level and on this brutal stage,a delighted Kasper said at the press conference. “I had a free role from the squad, and honestly, I was hoping to notch up a good result, but this is beyond anything I could have imagined before the start. I am very, very happy.”
“I’ve been on the attack quite early today and even though the chasing group bridged across, I managed to hang on as more and more riders got spat out the back. On the home stretch, Tejay was the first to kick out, but I didn’t panic and felt that the best moment to open my sprint was as we came out of that corner, and even though it was longer than I wanted it to be, I could luckily hold it all the way to the line”, explained the first Danish rider to claim a stage victory at the Tour of California.
Asked by the journalists to give his thoughts on what had happened earlier on the day at the Giro d’Italia, Kasper – who on Tuesday will wear the points jersey – had a message for Elia Viviani and the rest of the Wolfpack: “I didn’t see the stage, just heard that Elia was relegated after winning. I am sad, because he is a great guy and would have deserved to take the stage. I hope that my victory here will give an extra motivation to the team in Italy and we’ll continue to amass many other great successes.”
Stage 2 Brief Results:
- Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck – Quick – Step) 6h17’11”
- Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) s.t.
- Gianni Moscon (Team Ineos) at 4″
- Tadej Pogacar (UAD) at 10″
- Maximilian Schachmann (BORA-hansgrohe) at 16″
General Classification After Stage 2:
- Tajay Van Garderen (EF Education First) at 9h31’19”
- Gianni Moscon (Team Ineos) at 6″
- Kasper Asgreen (Deceucninck Quick Step) at 7″
- Tadej Pogacar(UAD) at 16″
- Maximilian Schachmann (BORA-hansgrohe) at 22″
Jerseys:
- Amgen Race Leader Jersey – Tejay van Garderen (USA), EF Education First (USA)
- Breakaway from Cancer® Most Courageous Rider Jersey – Evan Huffman (USA), Rally UHC Cycling, (USA)
- Lexus King of the Mountain (KOM) Jersey – Davide Ballerini (ITA), Astana Pro Team (KAZ)
- Visit California Sprint Jersey – Kasper Asgreen (DEN), Deceuninck – Quick – Step (BEL)
- TAG Heuer Best Young Rider Jersey – Tadej Pogacar (SLO), UAE Team Emirates (UAE)
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