Cannondale silenced the pundits that have claimed that the Italian team was not strong enough to sufficiently support its captain Peter Sagan when it delivered a masterpiece in today's seventh stage of the Tour. Having single-handedly held off Omega Pharma-Quick Step, Lotto-Belisol and Argos-Shimano on the 113km run from the top of the final climb to the finish, they allowed their Slovakian leader to sprint for the win, leaving Sagan full of praise of the teamwork that had laid the foundations for his win.

When Peter Sagan twice in a row finished second in the Tour de France stages in Corsica, his Cannondale team faced much criticism. The Italian team had been unable to catch Jan Bakelants (Radioshack) in stage 2 and 24 hours later, Sagan had been left without a strong enough lead-out in the sprint against Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge).

Today the team delivered a true masterpiece in the seventh stage of the Tour de France. The team out down the hammer on the day's only category 2 climb and left all the big sprinters behind. Having only lost Brian Vandborg, the team used Sagan's 6 remaining domestiques to keep the combined might of Omega Pharma-Quick Step, Lotto-Belisol and Argos-Shimano at bay on the 113km mostly flat stretch to the finish, allowing Sagan to benefit from a strong lead-out to easily take the win in the sprint.

Afterwards, Sagan was keen to point out that the man pundits had been wrong in their assessment of the team.

“This is not my win, it’s ours," he said. “Without the great efforts of my teammates I think I couldn’t take this beautiful win. I didn’t celebrate with any particular salutes but I just pointed out the Cannondale name because this win belong to my mates more than to me. I read criticism on them because they don’t lead me in sprint but today they did a 140 km sprint. It was an incredible action.

Actually, the team had only planned to continue its effort to the intermediate sprint to allow Sagan to pick up 20 points for the points competition. Still enjoying a 2-minute lead, the team did, however change its mind.

"We planned to work to outdistance the sprinters and to win the intermediate sprint," Sagan said. "After that, they said me: let’s lead until the finish line to win. I have to thank them one by one because they believed in me and they sacrificed for this result."

Having taken 20 points at the intermediate sprint and 45 at the finish, Sagan now leads 2nd-placed Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) by a massive points and barring accidents, he appears to have locked up the win very early in the race.

Nonetheless, he refuses to take anything for granted.

“Today was a perfect day, I didn’t expect to take so many points," he said. "But the Tour de France is unpredictable, every day is full of risk and crashes. If I’ll feel good during next days I could search the break. And I want also be competitive in the sprints. I have to work day by day."

The Tour de France now heads into the Pyrenees and so further stage wins should be beyond Sagan's capabilities for now. With a seemingly unassailable lead in the points classification, his rivals are now likely to give him a little more freedom, and so we could - nonetheless - see him go on the attack as he did last year in the Pyrenean stage to Foix.

Starting at 14.00 you can follow tomorrow's first mountain stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.