Final KM: Amgen Tour of California St8, ATOC Women St4

Last stage at the Amgen Tours of California. It was fast, frantic and finished with superb sprint from two great exponents of the art. Then came the podiums: and you know how we LOVE a good podium – All of the HAPPY!

Tour of California, Stage 8, Sacremento to Sacremento, 138km

Cavaaaaandeeeeesh!!! Yessireee Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) finally got it together in the sprint stakes, surfing the wheels and zipping over the line in front of Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) and Katusha’s Alexander Kristoff. Second in 2015, Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx Quickstep) kept his lead over BMC tag team Rohan Dennis and Brent Bookwalter by 21secs and 43secs respectively. Evan Huffman (Rally) packs the Mountains jersey to take home, and Axeon Hagens Berman’s Neilson Powless is best young rider. Peter Sagan adds yet another points jersey to his collection.

Highlights…

Giant-Alpecin are such a tight knit team. Somehow we missed Koen de Kort‘s video blogs from California, you can catch them all here. Here’s how the the happy Giants celebrated after the race. [love #TheMightyDegs].

They also said farewell to Caleb Fairly who rode into retirement after the Californian expedition…

Tour of California WE, Stage 4, Sacremento to Sacremento, 66km

Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products) took a screamer of a sprint win over Canyon SRAM’s Lisa Brennaur with Marianne Voss (Rabobank-Liv) rounding out the podium. Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans) finished in the pack and stepped up to podium with Kristin Armstrong (Twenty16-RideBiker) at 17secs and Evelyn Stevens (Rabobank-Liv) at 28secs. It was great day for the American riders as they waltzed off with all the jerseys. Megan also claimed the points, Chloe Dyggert (Twenty16) best young rider and Wiggle-High5 ‘s Mara Abbot the polka dots.

Highlights… (Longer highlights here )