Peter Sagan added a World Championship in the road race to his résumé of four Tour de France points classification titles, becoming the first Slovakian to claim elite individual gold at a Road Cycling Worlds on Sunday.
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“From the last climb, it was still a long way to the finish”.
Containing Ted King (USA), Ivan Stevic (SRB), Sung Baek Park(KOR), Carlos Alzate(COL), Jesse Sergent(NZL), Sergei Tvetcov (ROU), Conor Dunne(IRL), Andriy Khripta (UKR) the selection held a lead that went past 3min 30sec before the Dutch led peloton inched in back to half that. “I was hoping for the last cobblestone line and from there it was just gas it to the finish”. “I didn’t think he’d have enough legs to get to the finish, but I obviously underestimated him”.
“There was at huge inspiration for myself to win”, Sagan said.
Race officials tell CBS 6 there is energy to perhaps bid for another large scale cycling event.
Zdenek Stybar (Czech Republic): “I think the shape is good”. “I still can’t believe I crossed the line first”. This is very nice, I am very happy for this but I want also for another generation that can ride to be here.
“We live in the moment now, ” Sagan said, “but maybe in the future, I don’t know”. “I can just do what I did”.
“Today was a massive day”, elite men’s national road coach Brad McGee said. Sharing the effort was Jarlinson Pantano (COL), Kanstantsin Siutsou (BLR) and Guillaume Boivin (CAN). We don’t have a big classics guy here.
A Phinney win would have been a popular one, not least because of his return from serious injury, but it was not to be.
Numerous attacks led to several different late race moves and splits in the peloton including a particularly unsafe seven-rider group that included defending world champion Michael Kwiatkowski (Poland), Tom Boonen (Belgium), Ian Stannard (Great Britain), Dani Moreno (Spain), Andrey Amador (Costa Rica), Bauke Mollema (Netherlands) and Elia Viviani (Italy).
We have three guys who can go for the win.
With less than 120km to go the break lost Park, Khripta and then Stevic even as the peloton kept tempo with the race under its firm control.
He was joined by John Dengekolb, with Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium) getting up to them.
For much of the race, Sagan was the invisible man, patiently biding his time hidden in the peloton until seizing his chance with three kilometers to go when he decided to make a solo break. The move stalled when others also bridged, though, and while Van Avermaet attacked hard on 23rd Street Sagan was able to contain him.
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The Slovakian sprang off the front of the pack on the short final climb and quickly built a healthy gap.
