Peter Sagan claims a memorable victory at Gent-Wevelgem with late solo attack

Peter Sagan powered to victory at Gent-Wevelgem to claim a long-awaited first win in the Classics.

Despite a number of speculative digs, nothing was able to go clear until a move of Juan Antonio Flecha (Vacansoleil-DCM), Mathieu Ladagnous (FDJ) and Assan Bazayev (Astana) went away ahead of the Catsberg climb. The trio lasted until 52km to go, where a quick regrouping only served as the launchpad for the decisive move of the race, with the 13 men seeing their advantage quickly spin out to over 2min 30secs. The race finally settled into a holding pattern, which allowed Sagan, helped by team-mate Maciej Bodnar, to take a landmark victory. Result 1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Cannondale, 4:29.10
2 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana, +28secs
3 Greg van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing, same time
4 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) IAM Cycling, st
5 Juan Antonio Flecha (Esp) Vacansoleil, st
6 Mathieu Ladagnous (Fra) FDJ, st
7 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Team Sky, st
8 Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, st
9 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) RadioShack-Leopard, st
10 Andrey Amador (Crc) Movistar, st
18 Mark Cavendish (GB) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, +40