Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) again used his status as world champion and Tour de France race leader to talk about rider safety after the hectic stage 3 sprint in Angers, and the reason why the peloton raced so slowly for the 223km stage.
As Bernhard Eisel explained to Cyclingnews, the way the Tour de France peloton races on the flat stages has changed in recent years. Now both the sprinters' teams and the GC teams want to ride on the front to protect their riders, avoid crashes and splits in the peloton and then ultimately perhaps try to win the stage. However, their different objectives lead to different ways of riding, resulting in the GC rider teams clashing with the sprinters' teams and raising the tension between them.
Sagan finished fourth in the rising sprint won by Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) head of Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and so kept the yellow jersey. He still leads Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) by eight seconds in the general classification.
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After being asked a first question in his press conference with the written media, Sagan quickly turned the tables and put out a question to those involved in running professional cycling. Sagan would like to see the rules changed so that only the sprinter's, who often are better bike handlers and calculate the risk they take, need to contest the sprint finishes.
"There's one question I want to ask the UCI: to turn back the rules on neutralising the last three kilometres. I think it'd be better for cycling, for our safety," he said.
When asked to explain further, he did.
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