Sagan wins his first Monument in Tour of Flanders
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) secured the first win in Ronde van Vlaanderen with an unstoppable performance. The World Champion attacked several times and shed his final companion, Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo), on the Paterberg before soloing to the finish.
“It was super hard, the race. From the start until the finish, it was always full gas,” Sagan said. “I had a little problem after 100 kilometers — I had to change both wheels because I broke a wheel. There were a lot of crashes. Thanks to all the team, because they did a very good job.
“We have to think also about two guys dying last week. It’s very sad. I want to dedicate this to them.”
Sagan has won multiple green jerseys at the Tour de France and has taken countless sprint victories in his career, but he decided to rely on his soloing skills in Flanders.
“It’s very hard to work with other guys, because nobody wants to work with me. It’s always better to drop everybody, I think,” he said.
As the Flanders winner, Sagan is now a natural top favorite for next weekend’s Paris-Roubaix, but he wants to soak in the joy of finally picking up a Flanders victory before he focuses too hard on the cobblestones of northern France.
“Im very happy for this. I want to have fun after this big victory. Next week we’ll think [about] next week,” he said.
Tour of Flanders 2016 results:
| 1 | Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) |
6:10:42 |
| 2 | Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) |
+25” |
| 3 | Sep Vanmarcke (Lotto Soudal) |
+27” |
| 4 | Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) |
+48” |
| 5 | Luke Rowe (Sky) |
,, |
| 6 | Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale) |
,, |
| 7 | Imanol Erviti (Movistar) |
,, |
| 8 | Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) |
,, |
| 9 | Dimitri Claeys (Wanty – Groupe Gobert) |
,, |
| 10 | Niki Terpstra (Etixx-QuickStep) |
,, |
