THE SAGAN SHOW

So thrilling, so fearless, so quintessentially him was Peter Sagan’s performance to finish second at Milan-Sanremo in March that it moved one Italian journalist to observe in Il Giornale that, “Even when Sagan loses, he ends up winning.” A month later, the Slovak hoped the maxim still applied, having concluded his Classics campaign with a new showreel of crowd-pleasing moments but no major victories.

At the Tour, Sagan will be aiming to equal Erik Zabel’s record of six green points jerseys and, perhaps more importantly, add to his seven stage wins in the Grande Boucle to date. He may also feel that he ought to be converting more opportunities in France, having amassed an astonishing 30 second or third place finishes in Tour stages since his debut in 2012. Whatever the results and the rewards, we can look forward to more of the swashbuckling riding with which Sagan has single-handedly enlivened countless July days in recent years. Race director, Christian Prudhomme, has become increasingly alarmed at the predictable, robotic nature of the racing on certain terrains. There is only one Peter Sagan, and no other rider like him, but what would Prudhomme give for 200 clones?