Peter Sagan is followed by a fan during stage 14.(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Peter Sagan made the breakaway during stage 14.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) extended his lead in the points classification(Image credit: Sirotti)
Peter Sagan takes a corner during stage 14.
Peter Sagan is in green again after stage 14.
Peter Sagan’s aggression on the long road to Mende on stage 14 of the Tour de France was aimed at extending his lead at the head of the points classification but it almost yielded the unexpected dividend of a stage victory to boot.
From the outset, Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) would have earmarked the Tour’s four-day trek through the Massif Central as ideal terrain to place a down payment on a fourth consecutive green jersey in Paris. Second place in Rodez on stage 13 handed the Tinkoff-Saxo man a 24-point lead over André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and he looked to extend that buffer by infiltrating the break in the frantic opening hour of racing on Saturday.
Sagan was a permanent fixture off the front as various breakaway groups formed and splintered during the early exchanges, and that enterprise was rewarded with a facile victory in the intermediate sprint at Millau after 78 kilometres. Rather than sit up, Sagan persisted in his efforts and remained part of the 20-man break that would ultimately contest the demanding finale at Mende.
The final haul up the Côte de la Croix Neuve (the so-called Montée Laurent Jalabert) has pitches of 11 percent but the road flattens out ahead of the 1.5 kilometre run from the summit to the finish at Mende’s airstrip.
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Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
