Bradley Wiggins got one step closer to the overall victory in the Tour of Calfornia when he finished safely in the bunch on yesterday's hard seventh stage. The Brit refuses to take anything for granted yet though and will keep an eye on the Garmin team in today's tricky circuit race.

Bradley Wiggins moved within 24 hours of wrapping up the overall victory at the Tour of California by finishing the penultimate stage in the front group after Peter Sagan had sprinted to victory.
 

Wiggins never looked threatened on the lumpy 142.8km trek from Santa Clarita to Pasadena and was well marshalled by his hard-working team-mates once again before a fractured finish ensued on the city centre circuit.

With a number of high-profile sprinters dropped earlier in the stage and Cannondale using up the majority of their domestiques to bring the breakaway back, there was a conspicuous lack of lead-out trains on what could otherwise have been a breakneck finale. Instead, it was Thor Hushovd who ignited the sprint, but Sagan easily overhauled the BMC rider in the final 100 metres before pressing on to seal his first victory of this year’s Tour.

Wiggins rolled home on the same time as Sagan which ensured he maintained his 30-second advantage over Rohan Dennis (Garmin-Sharp) at the top of the general classification.

Immediately after the stage Wiggins gave his thoughts on the stage before revealing the plan of action for Sunday.

“We knew Cannondale would want to ride for the stage win because they were desperate to make that happen. That meant all we had to do was make sure there were no Cannondale riders in the break at the start of the day, and when that happened, they rode like we’d predicted.

“That meant we could sit back a bit, but we still had to keep our wits about us, especially on that long run in because it was pretty fast on the descent. I was thinking ‘a puncture now and it could be over’, so I couldn’t relax until I’d crossed that line, especially with the speed we were going. I’m glad we’ve got another day ticked off and it’s all down to tomorrow now.

“We’ll continue to do the same thing there and keep an eye on the Garmin guys, as we’ve been doing every day. If we do that, I’m sure we’ll be alright.”

Looking ahead to Sunday's concluding stage, Sports Director Kurt-Asle Arvesen was keen to err on the side of caution and insisted the race was far from decided.

"Brad's looking super strong but we're not taking anything for granted. It's going to be crazy out there tomorrow and we're expecting plenty of attacks to come our way on the short, sharp climb they do three times on the circuits.

"We'll need every rider to give it their all for Bradley, and if they can do that, we should be OK. 30 seconds is not a big time gap though, and we've seen in the past how tricky this stage can be, so we have to stay focused right until the end."