Monday 23 May 2016 07:39, UK
Mark Cavendish ended a frustrating Tour of California by winning the final stage as Julian Alaphilippe secured overall honours.
Cavendish was hampered in his efforts to take the yellow jersey in last Sunday's opening stage, but made no mistake on the final circuit of the closing stage, which started and finished in the state capital Sacramento.
The Dimension Data sprinter waited in behind world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) before getting into the clear 150m from the line and easing home by nearly three bike lengths.
The victory was only Cavendish's third of the season following stage wins at the Tour of Croatia and Tour of Qatar, where he was also crowned overall winner.
"We had to use our whole lead-out to catch the break, so in the end it was a bit a case of free styling," Cavendish said.
"I was on Sagan's wheel and know this finish really well. I've won here before and knew that, if was in the right position I should win here."
Sagan, who won the green points jersey, finished second ahead of Saturday's stage winner Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Team Sky's Danny van Poppel.
On a flat stage, Alaphilippe only really needed to finish in the bunch to complete victory in the eight-day race, but the Etixx - Quick-Step all-rounder fought out the final sprint with some of the world's fastest men and came home 11th.
With a gap to the group behind him, Alaphilippe actually extended his winning margin over BMC Racing's Rohan Dennis to 21 seconds. Dennis' team-mate Brent Bookwalter took third overall.
Stage 8 result:
1 Mark Cavendish (Gbr) Team Dimension Data 3h 01m 12s
2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff st
3 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha st
4 Danny van Poppel (Ned) Team Sky st
5 John Degenkolb (Ger) Giant-Alpecin st
Final overall standings:
1 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Etixx - Quick-Step 31h 47m 50s
2 Rohan Dennis (USA) BMC Racing +21s
3 Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing +43s
4 Andrew Talansky (USA) Cannondale +52s
5 Lawson Craddock (USA) Cannondale +1:22
