Amgen Tour of California

Kasper Asgreen pulled off another massive performance at the Tour of California, which arrived for the fifth time on Mt. Baldy, one of the toughest climbs in the history of the race – averaging 8.2% over 8.5 interminable kilometers – which in 2015 witnessed a spectacular Deceuninck – Quick-Step victory, notched up by Julian Alaphilippe.

Victorious in South Lake Tahoe a few days ago, Kasper put in a resolute display, taking over the reins in the reduced bunch on one of the steepest sections of the vicious ascent and setting a searing pace that brought back the sole leader of the stage and cracked the yellow jersey with four kilometers to go. This opened the door to a flurry of attacks, which fragmented the elite group and left riders scattered all over the road, trying to make their way to the top of the climb.

Despite losing contact when the big accelerations came, Asgreen continued to showcase his climbing prowess, not panicking and riding a steady pace on the ferocious slopes of Mt. Baldy; this wise decision helped him finish sixth, just 22 seconds down on winner Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), a result that kept young Kasper on the overall podium with one day to go at the World Tour event.

“I knew it was going to be tough, but it ended up being a nice day, way better than I had expected. The team protected me going into the final climb, where I did some of the early pace-setting in order to make it as far as possible in the main group, before the small guys started attacking. Then I just rode my own pace and made it to the finish exhausted, but satisfied that I was still in the top three”, Kasper explained when asked about his strategy in the closing kilometers of stage 6.

Not only that he sits in third place, the 24-year-old Dane has also strengthened his grip on the green jersey classification, which he leads by eight points: “I am surprised of the way I climbed this week, I definitely didn’t expect that. It’s the first time that I test my legs on the mountains and I’m very happy with how things went. But the race isn’t over yet, we’ve got one more stage on Saturday and I hope to keep the green jersey, as that would be the cherry on the top.”

Photo credit: ©Chris Graythen/ Getty Images