Liquigas rider Peter Sagan, just off winning five of eight stages in the Tour of California and the Prologue Saturday, did it again in Stage Three of the Tour de Suisse.
The Slovakian powerhouse trailed Orica-GreenEdge sprinter Baden Cooke through the narrow, wet and twisting streets of the final kilometer. Sagan needed all the bike-handling skills he learned as a former mountain-biking champion he nearly crashed in the penultimate corner. Sagan kicked his foot free of the pedal and pushed himself upright while riding at 40 mph, keeping enough momentum to pass Cooke around the final corner and get to the finish line first.
“I can’t really explain what happened or how I didn’t fall off,” said Sagan on the team website. “I went fast into the bend so I wouldn’t lose second position, but I lost my grip because the tarmac was wet. I instinctively took my foot off the pedal to stop myself slipping and then carried on to catch Cooke who was getting away.”
Three riders attacked six kilometers into the 195-km stage: Michael Morkov of Saxo Bank and Guillaume Bonnafond of Ag2R were first, joined soon by Jonas Vangenechten of Lotto-Belisol.
This trio gained about 11 minutes before the peloton decided to give chase. That chase was interrupted at a railroad crossing 53 km from the finish when a train came though, cutting the breakaway and the first fifteen riders off from the rest of the peloton. Race officials made most of the riders wait, but the breakaway gained a minute and a half. This made the catch a little more uncertain, and it made the sprinters’ teams work a lot harder.
For a while, it seemed no one could decide whether to just let the breakaway go or to chase it again. Finally Liquigas and Sky decided to get down to work, and with some help from Garmin and Orica GreenEdge the gap started to tumble.
The indecision was almost the sprinters’ team’s undoing: Vangenechten fell off on the Cat 3 climb 26 km form the end, but Morkov refused to quit, urging Bonnanfond to keep pulling. This pair stayed away until the final 500 meters, long after most breakaways would have surrendered.
With the speed of the chase and the narrow twisting roads, many still wet from the afternoon showers, no team had time to organize a serious leadout. Orica GreenEdge got one man in front of Baden Cooke; for the rest, it was every rider for himself. Some got squeezed aside through the tight turns and never saw the sprint; Garmin’s Tyler Farrar suffered this fate, finishing eighth.
Peter Sagan came from several riders back by sheer effort of will, getting onto Cooke’s wheel with two turns to go. He nearly crashed; not many riders could unclip and kick themselves upright at the speed the peloton was traveling. Maybe none but Sagan could do all that, then clip back in without missing a pedal-stroke and continue pushing.
