Sagan by a tire width

Peter Sagan completed his 100th Tour de France stage today and in it he took his 7th Tour de France stage win. The numbers don't sound spectacular by his lofty standards, but when you remember how closely he is marked and how often others turn to him to close gaps, it's incredible to learn that in those 100 races, he has finished in the top ten on 52 occasions, and of those, 33 were podium positions.

Yes, since 2012 when he entered his first Tour (and he's won the green jersey every year), Sagan is finishing in the top ten of a stage every other time he races at the Tour and a third of the time he's in the top three. Can you imagine the numbers if just half those podium places had gone another way and he'd won them as, if you remember long and hard, he probably deserved to do? He could already be two-thirds of the way towards catching the spectacular total of wins by Mark Cavendish who himself is just four away from the all-time record of 34 held by Eddy Merckx.

There's a lot of 'what if's' in that last paragraph, but those hard statistics up top are incredible in themselves. And when you consider a pure climber and often takes those days off, what does that do to his strike rate for top 10s or podium placings in stages not raced in the high mountains? There is definitely a feeling of 'if only' within me that wishes he could climb the big mountains that little bit better.

That 7th win today was the closest of them all and afterwards Sagan acknowledged that fate might be finally turning in his favour after so many second place finishes in recent years. It's hard to argue that, and the idea that if you work hard enough, for long enough and you retain the highest collective talent in the peloton, the wins will finally come. That's his third of this years Tour already thus meaning that 43% of his Tour de France stage wins have come in 2016. A 5th green jersey is a mere formality.

The stage itself was an interesting one. The rare sight of two team-mates going up the road (Tony Martin and Julian Alaphilippe of Etixx - Quick Step) on the suicide attack of the day only to be reeled in sometime after crossing the border from France into Switzerland before the finishing city of Bern where the twisty streets led to a short but steep little cobbled climb that took them up to a plateau that ran into the finish.

I had tipped Cavendish to win, though I did so before I realised how tough that little climb was. Credit to the Manx Missile though as he got up with a select group and finished on the same time as Sagan. The same could not be said for any other pure sprinter. Fabian Cancellara was the sentimental pick of course, finishing in his own city in his final Tour de France. The big Trek-Segafredo rider got up at the front but had to settle for sixth in the sprint.

So of course it was a finish made for Sagan and it was no shock to see him setting himself up for the sprint, coming around Alexander Kristoff late and lunging for the line to take it by a tires width as Kristoff misjudged the line and failed to lunge until he was passed it. A fellow Norwegian was third in Sondre Holst Enger with John Degenkolb and Michael Matthews finishing in front of Cancellara.

There was no time lost by anyone in the top ten overall.

And so into tomorrow and the final rest day. The natural transition from week two to week three, albeit with week three being a short one but a very difficult one. Four hard mountain stages sandwiching a hard up hill 17km individual time-trial. All to play for then for the skinny men of the peloton and those with the daring belief to risk their own high position to try and unseat Chris Froome from his. The sprinters have only Paris left for their own glory.