Peter Sagan wins the opening stage of the Amgen Tour of California
Peter Sagan continued his splendid run of form at the Amgen Tour of California and dominated the opening stage of the event.
The cyclist is enjoying a terrific season and has already bagged numerous victories in the earlier part of the season.
The Slovakian overcame Heinrich Haussler of Team Garmin-Barracuda and Fred Rodriguez of Team Exergy during the opening 186.5 kilometre stage.
He crossed the finish line in a fastest time of 4 hours, 42 minutes and 35 seconds and is now leading the stage 1 classifications with a healthy margin over his main rivals.
The 22-year-old had a puncture in the final 10 kilometres but recovered just in time to achieve the top position.
Sagan was delighted after the victory and appreciated the brilliant performances by his team-mate Daniel Oss during the event.
He noted, "Daniel Oss did a really great lead-out and I'm really happy to win the stage," Sagan said.
"It was a really confusing sprint because it was a small field. With 10km to go I flatted, but I knew there was time to get back in”.
“Thanks to the work of my teammates I didn't panic, and we were able to get back on easily”.
“With 3km to go one of my teammates Ted King crashed, and I hope he's okay, but thanks to Daniel Oss, he piloted me to the finish and I was able to win".
Sagan started his 2012 winning pursuit with a stage 2 win at the Tour of Oman 2012.
The cyclist also succeeded the top position at the point’s classifications and bagged stages at the Tirreno-Adriatico and the Three Days of De Panne.
He achieved the second overall position at the Gent-Wevelgem, third at the Amstel Gold Race, Fourth at the Milan-San Remo and fifth during the Tour of Flanders 2012.
Sagan currently holds the fourth overall spot at the UCI Elite Men’s Ranking 2012 with a total number of 229 UCI points in his back pocket.
Tom Boonen is leading the category while Vincenzo Nibali and Samuel Sanchez holding the second and the third spot at the category.
Peter is hopeful to continue his overall dominance at the coming stages of the race and is eyeing the top podium spot after the final general classifications.
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