Peter Sagan wins fifth stage of 2011 Amgen Tour of California: Cycling News
Liquigas-Cannondale team's Peter Sagan won the fifth stage of Amgen Tour of California 2011from Seaside to Paso Robles, on Thursday, May 19. Chris Horner took overall classification leader’s jersey.
The 21-year-old, Peter took a total of 5 hours, 16 minutes and 3 seconds to cover the distance of 217.4 kilometres.
HTC-highroad team’s Leigh Howard grabbed second place with same timing of Peter while first stage winner Ben Swift of the Sky team was in third place. Paul Martens of Rabobank was in fourth place adrift.
After winning the stage, Peter told the media, "I had the best place in the race. I didn't need to be at the front. But when the gaps opened up toward the end, Levi pulled me up there."
Recently, Peter took overall first place in the Giro di Sardegna and also grabbed first place in points classification. He also grabbed third place in Classica Sarda Tour.
The group of four riders including Oscar Freire of Rabobank, Dan Martin of Garmin-Cervelo, Chris Froome of Team Sky and Chris Baldwin of Bissell got gap over the first KOM at Laureles Grade.
Triple World Champion, Oscar took First Mountain ahead of Froome and Martin and also grabbed the first sprint in front of Martin and Baldwin.
At the 30 kilometres mark, the break had swelled down to eleven escapes, Jonathan Patrick McCarty maintained his speed and took Second Mountain ahead of the other three cyclists.
The escape increase their speed over peloton but they can never gained three minutes as advantage so Jesse Anthony powered to clinch the third mountain in front of McCarty and Baldwin.
After few kilometers when the 10 riders hit the pavement, Unfortunately, Gustav Larsson, Ben Jacques-Maynes and Alex Dowsett left the race because of non-serious injuries. Thor Hushovd also left the race because of illness.
After getting some points, in the final KOM of the day, McCarty pulled his plug, while the two team, Leopard Trek and Rabobank riders conceded in their effort.
With the help of the Liquigas-Cannondale team, RadioShack managed to gain 2 minutes lead ahead of peloton. In the final 15 kilometres, Denifl suffered a puncture and leaving Freire alone in the race. In the next 5 kilometres, Freire tried his best took a
lead, but Spidertech team pulled him back and McCarty won the fourth mountain.
In the final kilometre, Howard jumped first with the Ben Swift, but Sagan was in good form and powered to cross the finish-line ahead of the other cyclists.
Christopher Horner was took lead in overall classification with the timing of 16 hours, 45 minutes and 35 seconds. Leipheimer was runner-up with 1 minute and 15 seconds behind Horner.
The next stage will start in Solvang (ITT) and all the riders will cover the distance of 24 kilometres.
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