Toms Skujins (Hincapie Development) took a hugely impressive breakthrough win when he successfully completed a long-distance breakaway on the hilly third stage of the Tour of California. Having distanced his companions on the big Mount Hamilton, he held off the hard-chasing peloton to take both the stage victory and the overall lead while Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) beat Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) in the sprint for second.

A few months ago the Hincapie Development Team proved its ability to develop great talent when they animated the Tour of Utah and the USA Pro Challenge. Joey Rosskopf earned himself a pro contract by nearly winning a stage in the former event while Robin Carpenter won a hard mountain stage in the latter.

Today the team put another name in the spotlight when Toms Skujins became a hugely surprising victory in the first hilly stage of the Tour of California. With an impressive solo ride, the young Latvian held off a reduced peloton that was led by several WorldTour teams.

"The last split I heard was like two minutes," Skujins said after the finish. "And then I thought this last 2km is going to be insufferable. I didn’t look back at all like the whole race, except for that last kilometre because I was like, ‘No way they are going to catch me.’ It was such a relief to get those last 200 metres, because that’s when I really knew that I going to get it.

“This is big. I dunno, it’s pretty massive for us. Last year Robin [Carpenter] won in Colorado. … This year we made it happen. This was not planned at all. I knew that a breakaway had a chance today. The last half an hour was pure pain.”