Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) won his second stage of this year's Tour of California, edging out Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) in a close sprint in Laguna Seca.
The race split several times on the run-in to the line but Sagan marked several moves and despite numerical supremacy from BMC, the world champion came through to win ahead of Van Avermaet and Nathan Haas (Dimension Data). Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx Quickstep) finished in the lead group to keep his leader's yellow jersey.
"I'm very happy," Sagan said after a long day in the saddle. "I have to thank all my teammates because they pulled all day. Today was 220km almost and they were all the day in the front. In the last two climbs it was very hard, and then I was alone because the other riders did their job before. It was very hard to stay with the climbers, and everyone was attacking. When we came into the final kilometers it was in a descent, and Van Avermaet was the big favourite and he was always on my wheel. After the last turn I let one guy go in front of me, and he pulled my sprint. I was very happy to win."
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Alaphilippe took out the first intermediate sprint to extend his lead in the overall standings to 22 seconds over Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo). George Bennett (LottoNl-Jumbo) remains third at 37 seconds.
The Frenchman has been hedging on whether he can defend the yellow jersey for the rest of the race, and said today was a harder day than Tuesday's stage 3.
"Today it was different. My legs were not so good, and it was warmer. In the last climb I was really suffering, and I wasn't in a very good position for the last kilometer. I lost some time and I had to close the gap at the last turn. I did my best for the sprint, but it wasn't my best day.
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