photo credits @ Tirreno-Adriatico
Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) held-off a late challenge from Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) to claims stage 3 of the Tirreno-Adriatico today.
A small group came together towards the end of today’s stage comprising a number of Team Sky riders alongside other big names such as Peter Sagan and Mikel Landa.
However, the group quickly began to thin-out along today’s brutal final climb, where Roglic commenced his winning move.
Greg Van Avermaet tried to accelerate but it was Yates who made the best push to try to catch the Slovenian rider.
However, Roglic’s move proved insurmountable as his British rival eventually ran out of road.
Meanwhile, Geraint Thomas finished in fourth place to takeover the blue leader’s jersey, while race favorite Chris Froome moved up into third spot at three-seconds back.
Race Highlights
A small group of riders containing Nicola Bagioli (Nippo-Vini Fantini) joined Jacopo Mosca (Wilier-Selle Italia), Sho Hatsuyama (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Stepan Kurianov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) and Dennis van Winden (Israel Cycling Academy) came to form the day’s breakaway group.
From there, the quintet went on to establish an substantial advantage of more than 9 minutes over the peloton during the first 50 kilometers.
However, little-by-little the peloton reduced the escapee’s lead to where just Van Winden and Bagioli remained clear with 12 kilometers to go.
Bagioli later dropped Winden to crest the penultimate climb alone. But, the Italian rider was soon caught by the chase with Edoardo Zardini (Wilier-Selle Italia) almost simultaneously launching an attack off the front in a short-lived move.
Team Sky was quick to respond, with Michal Kwiatkowski putting in some big turns to up the pace on the hilly finishing which saw a large number of riders get dropped.
However, Roglic attacked off the front going into the final kilometer, catching Team Sky off-guard.
Roglic rapidly opened up a significant gap with no-one wanting to instigate the chase.
The increase in speed of the bunch on the climb meant that Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) was one of those dropped.
Yates looked to be the only rider capable to attempting to chase Roglic down into the steep final 500 meters, but he could not catch him.
Strade Bianche winner Tiesj Benoot put in an impressive climbing performance to secure third, with Thomas in fourth.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2018 Stage 3
1. Primož Roglič (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo, in 6-17-23 2. Adam Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott, at 3 secs 3. Tiesj Benoot (Bel) Lotto-Soudal, at 6 secs 4. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky, at 7 secs 5. Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education First-Drapac, at 10 secs 6. Mikel Landa (Esp) Movistar 7. Gianni Moscon (Ita) Team Sky 8. Romain Bardet (Fra) Ag2r La Mondiale 9. Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team Sunweb 10. Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors
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