Peter Sagan wins gold at Road Cycling World Championships

Peter Sagan added a World Championship in the road race to his résumé of four Tour de France points classification titles, becoming the first Slovakian to claim elite individual gold at a Road Cycling Worlds on Sunday.

The 25-year-old completed the 261.4km (162.4 mile) course in 6hrs 14mins 37secs to defeat Australian Michael Matthews by three seconds with Lithuania s Ramunas Navardauskas third, also in 6:14:37.

Sagan tossed his helmet into the crowd in the euphoric moments after his victory. It was the first medal of any kind for the U.S.in an elite road race at a world championships since 1994, and ensured her of an automatic nomination for the team that will head to the Rio Olympics next year.

“There was big motivation for me to win”, Sagan said.

Sagan is among those named, but he refused to anoint himself the favorite. Not since Italy’s Paolo Bettini in 2007 has a rider repeated as world road race victor.

“The way Sagan descends, not many people can follow”, said Matthews, according to VeloNews.

The day’s breakaway formed shortly after riders departed from the University of Richmond and made their way toward downtown, where thousands of fans lined the 10-mile circuit.

Those were Belgium’s Tom Boonen and Philippe Gilbert, Rui Costa of Portugal and last year’s victor, Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski.

Containing Ted King (USA), Ivan Stevic (SRB), Sung Baek Park(KOR), Carlos Alzate(COL), Jesse Sergent(NZL), Sergei Tvetcov (ROU), Conor Dunne(IRL), Andriy Khripta (UKR) the selection held a lead that went past 3min 30sec before the Dutch led peloton inched in back to half that.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a full nine guys and other nations do”, Bookwalter said, “so the responsibility is on them to dictate how the race will go“.

“We’re going to be Americans, do what we do”, Bookwalter said, “and that’s adapt and persist and endure and take advantage of situations that might arise”. “It was a nice gap, but everybody knew the last kilometers would decide it”. He let Zdenek Stybar and Greg Van Avarmaet lead the way up cobbled Libby Hill, then ripped away on the descent.

Sagan, who hid safely in the peloton all day, finally pushed to the front.

“He got a bit of a gap”. I don’t think a World Championship has ever been so exciting in my memory.

“I think it s the biggest victory”, Sagan said. On the penultimate climb, Sagan jumped to the front and roared away, getting into an aerodynamic tuck to leave the rest of the field behind.

Even when the US failed to land on the podium, the often-overlooked team made a statement.

Alex Howes was in that pack in 12th, finishing as the top American.