King of the mountains!

Toms Skujins wins the climbers competition at the Tour of California

When Toms Skujins rolled across the finish line in Sacramento Saturday in the final stage of the Amgen Tour of California, he officially laid claim to the King of the Mountain competition that he had already secured in Friday’s race.

With seven King of the Mountain (KOM) climbs in stage six and none in the stage seven flat circuit race, the polka-dot jersey was up for grabs the penultimate day, and a fierce battle erupted out of the breakaway between Skujins and Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling).

“We tried to get a couple of guys into the break, and Greggy (Rast) made a great move, and I just had to follow him – he made the break happen,” explained Skujins. “Eight riders were there with seven different teams represented, and quickly we got 10-20 seconds.”

Gregory Rast provided an extra advantage for Skujins, who calculated his tactics precisely over the climbs into South Lake Tahoe.

“The first KOM was a third category, so I didn’t go for it, I let the guys sprint it out and use up some energy,” Skujins continued. “And then I knew that the next one was a first category and I went full-on for that and saw that I got it, so the game was on.”

Skujins took maximum points in the second KOM, and in the next three, all rated category-two, he won the first two and finished second in the last, giving him 34 points to Huffman’s 33.

There were two more climbs at the finish, a category-one and a category-three, but 40kms of road remained in between, and the peloton had reduced the gap to the breakaway to a minute.

Skujins knew that the chance the breakaway would survive to the ending climbs was slim.

I pretty much comfortably took every KOM I wanted except the last 2nd category, which I knew I just had to follow Huffman since I already had it in the bag.

“I let Hoffman get the points since I knew I would still have the jersey,” Skujins said about the fifth KOM climb.

The breakaway group still had a small advantage as they started the penultimate KOM climb, and when Huffman was one of the first to be dropped, the mountains competition was all but over.

As expected, the GC contenders battled the final uphills, and despite Egan Bernal (Team Sky) – who was leading the KOM competition coming into the race – taking maximum points on the last two KOMs, Skujins already had the jersey secured.

“Greggy was the whole day there with me. He closed some gaps [so] that I didn’t need to waste energy – a massive job from him that actually made this jersey happen,” Skujins added, heaping praise on his teammate.

Sky’s Egan Bernal finished safely in stage seven to clinch the overall victory.