New Zealander George Bennett is the 2017 Amgen Tour of California overall winner.
Neither Rafal Majka nor Andrew Talansky could mount any challenge to him on the tour's final day ride into Pasadena. They finished second and third overall.
For Bennett, the stage 6 time trial put him far enough ahead that something drastic would have to have happened to close the gap.
It didn't.
"Today is really special. I had a few hours last night to let it sink in, and then it clicked over to business time, and we knew we had a job on our hands today, and we were up to the task. It’s really relieving to be over the line and still have this jersey on,” Bennett said after the race.
Majka of team Bora-hansgrohe led most of the tour, until stage 6.
Andrew Talansky of Napa and the Cannondale-Drapac Pro team also used stage 6 to move up the leaderboard to third, but he could move no higher during stage 7.
American riders Brent Bookwalter of BMC and Ian Boswell also were unable to gain ground during the final stage and finished fourth and fifth respectively.
Rally Cycling was one of two Continental teams invited to the tour this year and they wanted to make sure they were invited back. Rob Britton of Canada has been in a breakaway for half the tour, was at it again today with five others, including teammates Sepp Kuss and Evan Huffman. Huffman is from El Dorado Hills.
Huffman won the King of the Mountain competition last year and was trying to unseat United Healthcare's Daniel Jaramillo, who has held the KOM jersey since stage 2 this year.
Huffman took all the three of KOMs today and won the final stage.
“(David) Lopez didn’t take a single pull all day, so I knew he was going to go for it. With 2K left I swung out and decided I was going to sit on his wheel, and I knew that Rob (Britton) would keep it from completely stalling out and keep us going to the line. I got stuck on the front with Lopez. He was on the right side and I was on the left, and we just started sprinting really early and I was able to out-muscle him,” Huffman said.
But, he fell just short of taking the KOM jersey for the second time.
However, his effort clinched the Breakaway from Cancer® / Breakaway from Heart DiseaseTM Most Courageous Rider jersey.
Team Sky’s David Lopez Garcia of Spain and Cofidis, Solutions Crédits’ Nicolas Edet of France finished second and third behind Huffman for stage 7.
Lachlan Morton of Austrailia was also part of the breakaway and took the Best Young Rider classification.
Bora-hansgrohe’s two-time World Champion Peter Sagan won his seventh overall Visit California Sprint jersey.
Team Sky won the team title.
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