Peter Sagan takes victory on stage 1 into Seraing today
Dan Martin has enjoyed a great start to the Tour de France, finishing a very strong eight place in the uphill finish on the first road stage of the 2012 race today; a 198km trek from Liège to Seraing.
Martin was right at the head of the reduced peloton as the race kicked up the steep cobbled fourth category climb to the finish. At the 1.5km to go mark, yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara switched on the afterburners with an attack that only Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) could follow.
With Cancellara doing all of the work and Sagan refusing to come through, Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen made it across to the leading dup on his own. However, 22-year-old Slovak champion Sagan had far too much of a kick at the end for the others to handle, and he easily took the stage head of Cancellara, with Boasson Hagen in third.
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That trio were caught on the line by a leading select group that dropped the rest of the race on the final climb. In the gallop from that group Martin was 5th, leaving him 8th on the stage.
Nicolas Roche was also well up in that lead group on the final climb and finished on the same time as the leaders in 18th place. That’s a great ride by both on a day marked by a number of nervous crashes and time splits caused by the very fast finale up the finishing climb.
The two Irish riders now jump 30 places overall, with Martin 24th, some 24 seconds behind race leader Cancellara and Roche in 25th place, some 25 seconds down.
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Stage 1: Result
1 Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) 4:58:19
2 Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan)
3 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling)
4 Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team)
5 Bauke Mollema (Rabobank Cycling Team)
6 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Movistar Team)
7 Robert Gesink (Rabobank Cycling Team)
8 Daniel Martin (IGarmin – Sharp)
9 Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin – Sharp)
10 Dries Devenyns (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
18 Nicolas Roche (Ag2r La Mondiale)
General Classification
1 Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan) 5:05:32
2 Bradley Wiggins (Sky Procycling) 0:00:07
3 Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
4 Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) 0:00:10
5 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling) 0:00:11
6 Denis Menchov (Katusha Team) 0:00:13
7 Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team)
8 Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) 0:00:17
9 Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) 0:00:18
10 Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin – Sharp)
24 Daniel Martin (Garmin-Sharp) 0:00:24
25 Nicolas Roche (Ag2r La Mondiale) 0:00:25
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