Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) took his third win of the season today on the 171-kilometre fourth stage of Tirreno-Adriatico (2.UWT) from Montalto di Castro to Terminillo and now takes over the race lead.
On the final climb to Monte Terminillo, Quintana’s team mate Jonathan Castroviejo marked a dangerous move from Simon Spilak (Katusha) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) who attacked near the start of the 16-kilometre climb.
The trio gained a lead of 50 seconds, which reduced due to a number of accelerations from the likes of Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) and Adam Yates (Orica-Scott).
Quintana then attacked with 2.5 kilometres remaining with Yates, Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) and Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) reacting. However, further accelerations from Quintana saw him dropping all of his rivals to solo home 18″ clear of Thomas.
Quintana now leads by 33″ and 56″ ahead of Thibaut Pinot (FDJ). The race continues tomorrow with a 209-kilometre stage from Rieti to Fermo.
Nairo Quintana: “It went all as we planned it, I’m really happy. I wasn’t really confident about my condition since I had got a bit sick during the last few days, sort of a flu. It has taken some energy off me during the week, and I don’t feel superb yet. However, the team was really great all week supporting me. All my team-mates kept me calm until the foot of the climb, and later on, Andrey and Dani were really attentive to those attacks, just like Castroviejo.
Our strategy was having all three taking care of those attacks, before the moves from the big favourites, and Castro really delivered. As the big moves came, I stayed on their wheels until I found the moment to attack and overtake them. I feel like experience and maturity give you a real edge in such moments – the older the better, and it really paid off today for me.
There’s still a couple of dangerous stages left; actually, I think Sunday will be harder than today. It’s a nice gap in the overall standings for us, though, one that we can manage well through both tomorrow and the ITT, so we can bring this jersey home on Tuesday. We’ve got a strong team and I’m hopeful we can fulfil that goal.”
