Today’s result was Slovakian’s first time outside top two in a one day event this year
He was identified beforehand as the clear favourite, both on the basis of his superb run of form this year and also because of his win in Brabantse Pijl on Wednesday.
However after taking either first or second in every single day race he finished this year, Peter Sagan cracked on the Cauberg and trailed in only 36th. The Cannondale rider finished 57 seconds behind Roman Kreuziger (Team Saxo Tinkoff), slipping back dramatically to drop 35 seconds to Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Simon Gerrans (Orica GreenEdge) and the other nearest chasers in the final two kilometres.
He must now decide whether he can turn things around in time for Wednesday’s Flèche Wallonne, or if the first part of his season should be brought to a close.
Interestingly, Sagan doesn’t believe that his high level of form has petered out, or that fatigue has caught up with him. Instead, he considers that the weather was a major factor in how things unravelled.
“My performance today was not what I expected. When I was riding in the peloton the feeling was good, then in the finale, when I tried to get up on the pedals I feel cramps,” he said after today’s race. “I think depended from the warmth day. In last two months I always raced with low temperatures, today my legs suffered the change of the weather.
“The total kilometres of the race didn’t affect the performance, because in such long and hard races as Flanders and Sanremo the result was good. And I don’t think is a matter of tiredness: the [racing] schedule was almost the same of last year. It was simply a not good day with cramps.”
In the build-up to the race he said that he wasn’t decided if he would do Flèche Wallonne or not. That position remains, and it will be another twelve hours or so before he works out what he will do.
“I always think positively, even if the result was not what I wanted,” he said. “My Classics’ season was great and I’m happy anyway: I can’t get down just because of one performance.
“For the Flèche Wallonne I’ll decide together with the team tomorrow morning if I’ll race or not.”