Matthew Goss wins final stage and Christopher Horner overall leads in 2011 Amgen Tour of California
HTC-Highroad team’s Matthew Goss won the eighth and final stage of 2011 Amgen Tour of California on Sunday May 22.
The race started in Santa Clarita and ended at Thousand Oaks. The 24-year-old, Matthew took a total of 2 hours, 56 minute and 39 seconds to cover a distance of 132.4 kilometres.
After winning the stage Matthew said, "It's a great way to finish off the week, Tejay finished as best young rider, and now we've capped off the week in perfect fashion,"
Recently, he won the second stage of Tour of Oman and third stage of Paris-Nice race. Matthew also won Milan-San Remo race.
Stage five winner Peter Sagan of the Liquigas-Cannondale team’s was in second place with the same timing of Matthew. Gregory Henderson finished third while the race leader was in 65th place behind Goss.
The group of four riders made their first break Bradley White of UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling, Jan Barta of Team NetApp, Jose Fernando Antogna of Jamis-Sutter Home and Michael Friedman of Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth.
They gained advantage of three minute and forty seconds, Jan Barta took the points and won the final KOM of the day and Antogna took intermediate sprints points.
Jan Barta, Bradley White and Antogna led over the finish with the gap of 2 minutes and 35 second. Martin Mortensen of Leopard Trek’s and Maarten Tjallingii of Rabobank attacked the front of the peloton in the final four laps. They tried to put pressure on
the four riders.
With 13 kilometres to go, Tjallingii nad Mortensen come close to the break-away riders. White left out and soon the other two cyclists Fernando Antogna and Firedman will also retired.
Liquigas team made his speed and joined by HTC-Highroad and Sky. They pulled the three riders back in the closing circuit. In the last sprint, HTC-High road could control the situation and caught Henderson and Freire.
In the final 2 kilometres, Sky team’s Peter Sagan took the lead, but Matthew gained his speed and crossed the finish-line ahead of other riders.
Peter Sagan won the young rider title in the race and said, "I'm very happy to have been able to come and do this race again, with the stage win and the green jersey I'm very satisfied."
Christopher Horner maintained his speed in the final stage and took yellow leader’s jersey. Horner took lead with the timing of 23 hours, 46 minute and 41 seconds. Seven stage winner’s Levi Leipheimer was runner-up with 38 seconds behind Horner.
Thomas Danielson finished third in overall classification with the difference of 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
Tags: