Two weeks after his overall victory in the Tour of Turkey, Adam Yates again confirmed that he is a great talent when he finished fifth overall in the Tour of California. Having entered the race with no GC expectations, his Orica-GreenEDGE team was pleasantly surprised with the result.

Matt Goss finished just off the podium in Thousand Oaks, sprinting to fourth place on the final day of racing at the Amgen Tour of California. Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step) edged out John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano) for the stage eight win. Peter Sagan (Cannondale) rounded out the top three.

Mathew Hayman flew the flag for ORICA-GreenEDGE in the early breakaway. He was back in the bunch before the start of the short circuit laps at the finish. Jens Keukeleire featured into the late race move, going clear with three other riders on the final circuit. Five kilometres from the final crossing of the line, the race was back together and the sprint teams readied for a high-speed finale.

Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) safely finished in the bunch to win the overall. He moved into the yellow jersey following the stage two individual time trial and successfully fended off all challenges to the race lead throughout the course of the week. Adam Yates survived a hectic day of racing in the main to peloton to finish in fifth place overall, 2’14 behind Wiggins.

"We were expecting a really hard stage today," sports director Matt Wilson said. "We anticipated a lot of action the first time up the climb, and we had the plan to put Esteban Chaves in there – or someone else. Hayman wasn’t necessarily the guy that was targeting the moves. He was the one who ended up in it, which meant we had the break covered.

"Jens has really good form at the moment, and I wanted him to try to take an opportunity somewhere if he saw it. He went away as we entered the circuit. Jack Bobridge (Belkin) was tired after being out there all day, and the other guys weren’t working, so it was back together for the sprint.

"Needless to say, we saw toward the end that Gossy was going to our best bet. He had been distanced from the peloton over the climb but managed to rejoin the front of the race with one or two laps to go. The team put him a good position for the sprint. He came up with fourth place today.

"We hadn’t won a stage of Tour of California before this year, and now we’ve ticked that box. Having Adam fifth overall was a very nice surprise. It was a very satisfying week for the team."