First world problems at the Vuelta a España. As Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) has long since realised, a rider who can win on just about every kind of finale inevitably ends up facing an impromptu stewards’ inquiry every other day he goes out to race.
“Unfortunately every stage seems to suit me, so I can only try,” Sagan told reporters after he was beaten into third place on stage 5 to Alcalà de Guadaira.
As Orica-GreenEdge’s Mat Hayman put it afterwards, the uphill finishing straight “had Sagan’s name written all over it” but as it turned out, it was Hayman's young teammate Caleb Ewan who would come away with the win, careening past Sagan and second-placed John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) within sight of the line.
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Sagan is rarely given to offering excuses after falling short of the win, tending to accept defeat, in public at least, with fatality rather than frustration. On Wednesday, he accepted responsibility for being unable to deliver stage honours from a winning position, admitting that he was still feeling the effects of his second place finish behind Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) on the stiffer finale 24 hours earlier in Vejer de la Frontera.
“It was a technical, hard sprint today and so perfect for me, but today I didn’t have good legs,” Sagan said. “I had a perfect position from the last corner but I messed up the sprint and that was my fault. I can only thank the team because they did a good job and put me in the perfect position.
“Maybe I tried too hard to keep up yesterday and lost a bit today. But everything can happen, the Vuelta is still long.”
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