The rain, thunder and hailstorms that descended on the stage 12 finish line of Plateau de Beille after thermometers topped out at 38 degrees Celsius earlier in the afternoon ensured the third and final stage of the 2015 Tour de France's Pyrenean adventures would be a day of suffering for the gruppetto.
For Peter Sagan, it was another day of defending the green jersey, with the Tinkoff-Saxo rider prolonging the podium procedures as he crossed the line 33:34 down on stage winner Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha) to collect his fourth green tunic of this year's race.
"We will see tomorrow, today was very hard stage and I am very happy to finish," Sagan said of stage. "Tomorrow it might be a stage for me but I'm just happy that I've made it to the finish today under the pouring rain."
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The 188km stage from Lannemezan to the hors catégorie finish was the third time in the Tour's history the two locations had been the départ and arrivée of a stage. The 2015 edition would include three categorised climbs before the final summit, with an early intermediate sprint point after just 20km to keep the sprinters interested.
Sagan started the stage with a seven-point buffer over André Greipel, who was celebrating his 33rd birthday today and was looking to collect a green jersey as a present. Sagan was not in gift-giving mood with his third place in the sprint behind Greipel and John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin), denying the Lotto-Soudal sprinter a visit to the podium.
While Sagan may have put a damper on Greipel's celebrations, today is incidentally his girlfriend's birthday.
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