Slovakia’s Peter Sagan has won stage 16 of the Tour de France while Britain’s Chris Froome retained the overall lead.
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His team-mate Cavendish, victor of four stages in this Tour, did not have the legs to engage in the sprint coming off the climb and rolled home in 22nd place. But what memories he has created.
Trek-Segafredo’s Fabian Cancellara, the 35-year-old Berne native racing in his final Tour de France, had to settle for sixth place.
Froome said that Sagan can choose to be in the breakaway spot, and today’s proof “he wants to ride” with his win in the Tour de’ France Stage 16 leg.
The Manx missile left his team Dimension Data’s rest day hotel with the look of a man who had checked out, but refused to say where he was heading. This is the first of four particularly hard stages that will most certainly decide the final victor of the 2016 Tour de France ahead of the Paris stage on Sunday.
Norway’s Kristoff (Katusha) celebrated after crossing the line, but it was Slovak Sagan (Tinkoff) who grabbed the stage, strengthening his grip on the green jersey for the points classification with his third stage win. “I said at the beginning of the race I wanted to be at my best in the third week and I’m on track for that”.
Counterintuitive though it might sound, Froome said that the general state of fatigue within the peloton came down to the fact that there had not been a major summit finish in the first two weeks of the race.
Froome (72 hours, 40 minutes, 38 seconds) kept his 1-minute, 47-second lead over Dutch rider Bauke Mollema, with Britain’s Adam Yates in third, 2:45 back, and Nairo Quintana of Colombia fourth, 2:59 behind.
The Tour will stop in Berne on Tuesday for its second of two rest days, after which it will resume with stage 17, 184.5km from Berne to Hinhaut-Emosson in the Alps.
Asked what has stood out so far from this Tour from the others Sky have won with Froome, Braislford said: “We [have] raced more aggressively”.
“It must be quite demoralising for other people to have to think of attacking knowing this calibre of riders will be chasing them down”. A lot can happen in four days.
“You only need one bad day and you can lose a few minutes”. Cavendish sitting out the final stage on the Champs-Élysées means he will not contest the stage in Paris where he won four years in a row between 2009 and 2012.
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Former world champion Rui Costa then launched a solo attack but Sagan preferred to wait until the Portuguese rider was caught, and take his chances in the bunch sprint.
