Michael Rogers finished comfortably in the bunch on stage five to claim overall victory at Bayern Rundfahrt.
Team Sky kept a watching brief as a breakaway went clear early, soaking up the bonus seconds to allow the Australian, who held a 25-second advantage heading into the day, to claim his first stage race victory since the Tour of California in 2010.
The foundations for the victory were built on stage two where Rogers, along with team-mate Kanstantsin Siutsou, made his way into a dangerous move which yielded a stage win for the 32-year-old.
Holding a narrow advantage over rivals Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) and Vladimir Gusev (Katusha) heading into the decisive stage four time trial, Rogers kept a cool head to win a second stage, stretching out his advantage.
Team Sky rallied around the yellow jersey in the closing stages as the race culminated in a bunch sprint, claimed by Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) who held off Allan Davis (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Andre Schulze (NetApp).
The result also ensured that Richie Porte and Siutsou secured fourth and fifth overall respectively, the team placing three men in the top five. Seventh for Christian Knees underlined the strength of the squad across the board, comfortably claiming the team’s classification.
Winning feeling
After the race Rogers was happy to secure a strong overall result, paying tribute to the team and admitting he feels like his form is building nicely.
He said: “It was a relatively calm stage. Three guys went away pretty early and the boys did their usual thing to work to pull it back for a bunch sprint. It’s great to get the wins here. I haven’t won a field race like on Thursday since 2006. That was a relief but wherever you win it’s always nice.
“I don’t feel like I’m at my peak yet. I’ve pretty much come straight off a heavy training camp with a few days’ rest. It’s quite exciting times if we can achieve results like this coming off the back of quite an intense camp. I think that’s a sign of the team’s strength. I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing more of Team Sky riding on the front.
“Having been professional for 12 years I’ve been part of some big and successful teams but it’s really nice when everyone’s riding well across the board. It means the morale of the team snowballs. Everyone is performing well and laughing and smiling. The further I go in cycling I realise that these are the moments that you really treasure.”
Final test
The 165-kilometre final stage saw the trio of Karsten Kroon (Saxo Bank), Cedric Pineau (FDJ-BigMat) and Maximillian Werda (Thuringer Energie) make tracks after 10km of racing.
The escapees extended their advantage en route to the second category Ipsheim-Buhlberg climb, the gap spinning out to 5:40 on the road.
Yet with Pineau the best-placed in the break at +3:10 down on Rogers, Team Sky simply had to keep the move at arm’s length before the sprinters’ teams took over in the closing stages.
The advantage to the break dropped sharply on the undulating finishing circuit and the steep ramps of the Kaulberg, but with the three leaders soaking up the bonus seconds it was clear sailing for Rogers as the team replicated their victory of 12 months previous through Geraint Thomas.
Winning streak
After the stage Sports Director Sean Yates paid tribute to the team after putting the finishing touches on Team Sky's fifth stage race victory of the season.
He said: "Coming into the stage it was just a case of making sure we controlled things and didn’t fall off. Obviously there were attacks but when you have sprinters’ teams and us trying to control the GC it was always likely to finish in a bunch sprint.
"The boys have done really well. It was another fast day. Xabi and Danny rode the whole day on the front basically. Christian and Thomas looked after Mick and Richie. Kosta was also helping out on the front so it was a team effort.
"Mick came up with the winning TT and the key move on stage two. Chapeau to the boys. They’ve shown their level is extremely high and they’ve made the most of it. It’s nice to be a part of it and every victory is sweet."
