Monday 4 April 2016 12:12, UK
Peter Sagan produced a peerless performance to win the first Monument classic of his career at the Tour of Flanders in Belgium on Sunday.
The world champion powered into a solo lead on the last of the day's cobbled climbs, with 13km to go, and comfortably held on to beat Fabian Cancellara into second place by 25 seconds and Sep Vanmarcke into third by 27 seconds.
Luke Rowe was Britain's highest finisher, 49 seconds down in fifth.
Sagan dedicated his victory to Belgian riders Antoine Demoitie and Daan Myngheer, who died at the Gent-Wevelgem and Criterium International races respectively last week.
He said: "I feel very good. I am very happy. It was a super-hard race from the start until the finish; always full gas.
"It is very hard to work with the other guys because nobody wants to work with me and it is always better to drop everybody, but it's not easy.
"Thank you to all the team; they did a really great. We also have to think about the two guys who died last week. It's very sad, but I want to dedicate this to them."
The 255.9km Tour of Flanders is the second of the season's five 'Monument' one-day classics and takes place over a barrage of short but steep cobbled climbs.
Sagan (Tinkoff) went into the race on the back of finishing second at E3 Harelbeke and first at Gent-Wevelgem last weekend and was one of the favourites for victory, but he was surprisingly not followed by his rivals when he opted to go on the attack alongside Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) and Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) with 33km and two climbs to go.
Sagan barely looked out of breath as he cruised up the penultimate climb, the Oude Kwaremont, with 17km left, but Kwiatkowski couldn't keep pace and was dropped, and Vanmarcke also fell away on the final climb, the Paterberg, with 13km to go, as Sagan continued to dominate the race.
Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo), who was bidding for a record fourth win in his final appearance at the Tour of Flanders, attacked on the Paterberg and soon linked up with Vanmarcke, and the pair began working together in an effort to chase down Sagan on the flat run to the finish.
However, they could not get within 15 seconds of the supreme Slovakian, who pulled away again in the final 2km and had enough time spare to start celebrating with 50m to go.
His victory completed a clean sweep for world champions at the Tour of Flanders this year, after Lizzie Armitstead won the women's race earlier on Sunday.
Sagan will now look to add a second Monument triumph to his palmares at next Sunday's Paris-Roubaix but insisted he was not focusing on the 'Hell of the North' yet.
He added: "Now I want have fun after this big victory. Next week, we think [about] next week, not now."
Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) finished 12th, 49 seconds down on Sagan.
Result
1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff, 6:10:42
2 Fabian Cancellara (Sui) Trek-Segafredo, +25sec
3 Sep Vanmarcke (Bel) LottoNL-Jumbo, +27
4 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha, +48
5 Luke Rowe (GB) Team Sky, same time
6 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale, st
7 Imanol Erviti (Esp) Movistar, st
8 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Etixx - Quick-Step, st
9 Dimitri Claeys (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, st
10 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Etixx - Quick-Step, st
