Peter Sagan made it five wins out of eight when he took the final stage of the Amgen Tour Of California but Robert Gesink won the overall classification.
The final stage, which was the last ever for Robbie McEwen (pictured below) who announced his retirement, was a 72km sprint from Beverley Hills to Los Angeles and saw Andrew Talansky (USA), Garmin; Thimothy Roe (Aus), BMC; Christopher Jones (USA), United HealthCare; Michael Creed (USA), Optum; Matt Cooke (USA), Exergy fo away after seven kilometres.
They were brought back and a break containing Ben Jacques Maynes (Bissell), Rory Sutherland (United HealthCare); Thomas Damuseau (Argos-Shimano); Scott Zwizanski (Optum) Morgan Schmitt (Exergy), Nathan Haas from Garmin and Jasper Stuyven (Bontrager) took over.
The race reached Staples Corner where the fans were out in force for the first of six laps.
Rory Sutherland took the intermediate sprint with 33kms to go but with two laps to go, their lead at the front was only fifteen seconds.
Everyone was all together by the time the riders went under the flam rouge for the final time and although Tom Boonen tried to attack, Peter Sagan attacked and won the stage in a time of 1.27.36, ahead of Boonen and his Omega Pharma team mate Cholek.
It was Sagan's fifth win of the race but Rabobank's Robert Gesink won the gold jersey beating David Zabriskie by 46 seconds.
Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM