Tour Sweep 2016: Stage 10 - What of Sagan?

A great (team) win by Matthews, a rider I love to watch and he really showed the emotion at the end.

But Sagan, hey? I can't fault him. He is so good and never fails to take the opportunity to lighten up a stage, sometimes merely for the benefit of us, the viewers. Last night was a case in point. He attached from the go, UP the climb that lead to the highest point of the tour. That didn't work so he attacked down the slope. Then sat for some chasers, did most of the work, wore out two chasing teams teams that missed the break (Katusha and IAM), picked up the intermediate sprints, then attacked where there were cross winds to get rid of those hanging on, then covered Orica's 3:1 attacks solo, then 'only' came second in the sprint. Visibly grumpy with himself for not getting the win, he didn't blame anyone. In the past he has tried to share the covering of attacks only to see everyone let the attackers go and fight for third (behind Sagan's second). He has the green sewn up, I say, especially considering Cavendish looks set to bail any day now, and in any case Cav is unlikely to make it through the Alps with any more points. So he could well hide himself in the pack, but this is not Sagan's way. There was potential for last night to be a very boring stage, in the end the was always something going on, the chase didn't give up until about the same time Sagan attacked and broke up his group, and testament to how hard he was riding was the fact they averaged 45kmh for the stage. And the peloton was really chasing down the descent when Sagan got away.