Sagan will battle on after second straight defeat in Tour de Pologne
Long, hot stage wears down world champion
Despite registering a near miss at 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de Pologne for the second day running, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Peter Sagan (168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Bora-Hansgrohe) was tired but upbeat 𝓰as he donned the leader's jersey once again ღon Tuesday.
Sagan was the stage winner on Saturday in Krakow. Combined with second place on Monday in the summit finish in 🦄Szczyrk, where he regained the lead, and a 𒊎close third place in Tuesday's sprint into Zabrze, Sagan has garnered invaluable bonus seconds on three of the four stages so far.
After Tuesday's bunch sprint, where he picked up a further four-second time bonus, the reigning world champion is now 10 seconds clear of Dylan Teuns 🌺(BMC Racing Team), the stage winner on Monday, with Bora-Hansgrohe teamm♎ate Rafal Majka 16 seconds back.
In a week-long stage race with no time trial that is often decided by the bare minimum, even the smallest🐽 advantage could prove crꦍucial once the final GC curtain falls on the Tour de Pologne on Friday evening in Bukowina.
"Today [Tuesday] was very hot and the longest stage of the race, 238 kilometres, and th𒐪e weather conditions affected the conditions a lot," Sagan sai💫d afterwards as he and the press sweltered in the interview tents behind the finish line. "It was always flat, but when you got to the finish, you felt tired."
Temperatures mid-afternoon soared to the mid-30s in southern Poland, with race staff watering down the finish area to tღry and cool down the tarmac. As Sagan pointed out, in a stage lasting nearly six 𓃲hours, it was hard not to feel drained by the finale, where he was narrowly defeated by two pure sprinters.
"It was not a lot of climbs, almost flat, but I am cooked! We will see what happens tomorrow, but I'm happy to finish this one because it wa🅷s a very long, hard stage."
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"But it's OK, we kept the yel💙low jersey and we'🌠ll see how it's going tomorrow [Wednesday]."
Sagan, in theory, now enters terrain which is more favourable to him. Wednesday's lumpy finale into Rzeszow should enable him to shed at least some of the out-and-out sprinters, and the much shorter stage length, 130 kilometres, will make for a more open race. Then on Thursday, Sagan already knows what it fee🦋ls like to triumph in Zakopane in the foothills of the Tatras mountains, a stage finish where he was victorious back in 2011 – en route to his overall 💝win.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.