Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) held off a fast-finishing Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) Saturday in Santa Rosa to claim the stage 7 honours at the Tour of California. Team Sky's Danny van Poppel was third.
Despite constant pressure from his general classification rivals, race leader Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) finished in the lead group to stay in yellow heading into Sunday's final stage.
"It was a hard day," Kristoff said in the post-stage press conference, where he was seated next to Sagan. "This guy was pretty strong, and we were having trouble to catch him. For me it was more than enough just to sit in the back. I was suffering all day, and at the end I was feeling quite tired and I knew everybody else would be tired also."
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The penultimate day's route that started and finished in Santa Rosa looked like a monster on paper, and that proved to be the case as the peloton traversed narrow, rough, winding roads as they climbed the coastal range and dropped down to the Pacific ocean before going up and over again for the return trip.
Sagan hopped into a breakaway on the outbound trip and then rode solo for nearly 30km before succumbing to the Katusha and Direct Energie chase.
"I was surprised looking by my side at the finish line and I saw him there," Kristoff said of his Slovakian rival. "He was there all the time on the front and also a long time by himself, so he had a really strong ride today. For me it was good that he used a lot of energy because then at the end I just managed to beat him."
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