After a break following his successful classics campaign, John Degenkolb had arrived in America for the Amgen Tour of California with just his home race in Frankfurt in his legs. Hence, his Giant-Shimano was very pleased with his performance in the opening stage where he was just narrowly edged out by Mark Cavendish.

 

The finish of the opening stage of the Amgen Tour of California had to go down to a photo-finish between John Degenkolb and Mark Cavendish (OPQS) but after deliberation it was Cavendish who was awarded the win.

 

Degenkolb led the sprint out from over 200m out after a strong lead-out from his Team Giant-Shimano teammates in the final kilometre but was just passed in the final metres before the finish line.

 

The stage threatened to break up completely in the final 50km as a strong 15-rider group formed ahead of the peloton under the pressure of strong crosswinds. Koen De Kort was present in the front group for Team Giant-Shimano but behind there was not too much panic from the peloton and together with a few other teams, Team Giant-Shimano helped peg back the break and bring the race back together again.

 

Several riders tried their luck in the final 20km but the front of the race was all back together with five kilometres to the finish and one lap of a fast finishing circuit to race. The Team Giant-Shimano lead-out waited for the right moment before coming through in the final kilometre to set Degenkolb up in a perfect position to go full gas int he final 200m finishing straight but he was passed in the final metres by Cavendish who takes the first leader’s jersey of the race.

  After the stage, Team Giant-Shimano coach, Aike Visbeek said: “I’m really happy to see the guys stick to the plan on what turned out to be quite a difficult stage and that John is looking so fast already after just one race back after his break.

 

“When the race split in the crosswinds we got caught out, being slightly boxed in at the wrong moment. We decided to contribute to the chase here too but got caught out and also Lawson [Craddock] punctured at this moment too so things were a bit nervous.

 

“At the end we waited and the guys did a really good lead-out but John was just caught out on the line. It is still a strong start to the race and we have all the young guys for GC [Craddock, Daan Olivier and Chad Haga] still on the same time heading into tomorrow’s time trial so we will see how we are sitting after that to make a plan for the race.”