Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) all but secured his overall win in the Tour of California when he finished safely in 3rd place in yesterday's queen stage to the top of Mount Diablo. With just a flat 130km stage to Santa Rosa left in the race, only bad luck will be able to deny him his first ever win in a big stage race.

Despite his immense versatility and his win in the best young riders' competition in last year's Tour de France, Tejay Van Garderen has still not won a big stage race. He has been close on a  number of occasions with no less than 7 podium finishes since his professional career started in 2010 but until now he has always missed that little bit extra that would take him to the top step of the podium.

That will in all likelihood change later today when the Tour of California comes to a conclusion with a flat 130km stage to Santa Rosa. Having finished second in the stage 2 summit finish, he took over the lead after making the first echelon in the crosswinds in stage 5 before he won Friday's time trial.

He finished of the work yesterday with another strong showing in the queen stage to the top of Mount Diablo. His BMC team proved its massive strength by controlling almost the entire stage and on the final climb the strong pace by Michael Schär, Marco Pinotti, Brent Bookwalter and Amael Moinard made it almost impossible to attack.

Leopold König and Janier Acevedo managed to escape to battle it out for the stage win while Van Garderen was safely tucked in behind his teammates. Only inside the last kilometre he burst clear, dropping all but Michael Rogers to finish 3rd, and he brings a healthy 1.47 lead over second-placed Rogers into the final flat stage.

Van Garderen was impressed by the huge display of strength from his team.

"The guys controlled things from the beginning of the race, right up until the end," he said. "I only had to hit the wind in the last couple hundred meters. So they made my life so stress free. It was an incredible day."

"Tomorrow will be all about staying out of trouble," he continued. "It's an incredible feeling and I'm glad I will be able to make the team proud in Santa Rosa."

If Van Garderen takes home his first big stage race victory, it will be his second win of the season, the first one coming in Friday's time trial.