Slovakian Peter Sagan steamed to victory on the 13th stage of the Tour de France on Friday after bringing to the fore his sprinting credentials yet again.
The Bora-Hansgrohe team sprint specialist had managed to survive the Alpine stages that that proved to be the end of the race for rivals Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, Andre Greipel and Dylan Groenewegen.
Sagan stayed in the hunt from from Bourg d’Oisans to Valence and, having already won two stages on this edition so far, he was quick to capitalise.
It wasn’t easy for though as the Slovakian rider was given extra work to do after Belgian upstart Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step) brazenly attacked a leading peloton full of ambitious sprinters 930 metres from the line.
Sagan and his rivals were unperturbed however. They kept at it while Gilbert was caught with 245m remaining.
⏪🔻Relive the last km and @petosagan‘s third win! 🏆🏆🏆
⏪🔻Revivez le dernier km et la 3e victoire de @petosagan ! 🏆🏆🏆#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/oe6xA846Cg— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 20, 2018
Arnaud Demare’s FDJ team chased down a tame four-man breakaway in the last few kilometres of the race. But Demare came up short.
The Frenchman launched his burst first, but as UAE Team Emirates’ European champion Alexander Kristoff and world champion Sagan came up on his side, he ran out of gas.
Meanwhile, Geraint Thomas of Great Britain, who came out victorious on two of the Alps stages, remained in the leader’s yellow jersey.
Thomas was 1min 39secs ahead of his Sky teammate Chris Froome, while Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb was third overall at 1:50.
The 14th stage on Saturday is far more difficult and is a 188km run from St-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Mende.
