photo credits @ Tirreno-Adriatico
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) continued his winning ways, after the Slovenian rider claimed his third straight victory in the Tirreno-Adriatico today, beating Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) in Osimo.
Race Highlights
A sizable breakaway group of 11 riders containing Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo), Krists Neilands (Israel-PremierTech), Nikias Arndt (Bahrain-Victorious), Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa), Mike Teunissen and Georg Zimmerman (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Casper Pedersen (Soudal-QuickStep), Clément Russo (Arkéa-Samsic), Alessandro De Marchi (Team Jayco AlUla) and Valentin Ferron (TotalEnergies) came to form at the outset of today’s 194 kilometer stage from Osimo Stazione to Osimo.
From there, the escapees went on to establish a modest advantage of 3:12 over the peloton.
On the second assault of the walls of Osimo, Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) attacked from the peloton with 50 kilometers to go, later bridging his way to the lead group after his teammate Arndt fell back to assist him.
In the meantime, Simmons decided to up the pace in the breakaway, causing Russo to get dropped from the group, while Buitrago suffered a mechanical problem, forcing Arndt to once again drop back and help his teammate.
Back up front, Zimmerman and Ferron decided to attack along the walls of Osimo, causing a major split in the breakaway group.
Back in the peloton, a touch of wheels caused Wilco Kelderman (Jumbo-Visma) to crash, while Wout van Aert decided to light up the chase effort, subsequently reining in the remaining escapees.
Van Aert led across the penultimate KOM and soon an attack first from Alexander Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) and then Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) drew out Movistar’s Carlos Verona and Alex Aranburu. The four riders gained a couple dozen seconds but were soon caught when the GC battle really kicked off on the final series of climbs in the final 5 kilometres.
A patient Roglič waited to surge until he absolutely needed to, biding his time as Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) made their attacks and quickly marked the moves. He was with Landa, Almeida, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Hugh Carthy (EF-EasyPost), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech).
Woods attacked ahead of the final KOM and opened up a solid gap on the blue jersey group but could not withstand the pace of the Slovenian. Geoghegan Hart surged in the final 500 meters pulling out Mas and Roglič and the race leader proved strongest in the cobbled finale.
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