Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) powered past Elia Viviani (Team Sky) to win the third stage of Tirreno Adriatico in Montalto di Castro today with Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) taking third. It is the second win of the season for the Slovakian after also winning Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.
A long descent eased the riders into the day’s racing – with the parcours pointing downward for most of the first 40 kilometres of the stage, before a flat run in to the first climb. With the easy part over, it was undulating for the remainder of the 204km stage, with two categorised climbs to cross before the ride to the finish in Montaldo di Castro. The flat finale was earmarked for the fast men, but a kick at the finish still had the potential to trouble the out and out sprinters.
With the expected bunch sprint finish, the teams of the fast men were more relaxed when the break went up the road early on in the day. With some climbs before the run in to the finish, there was plenty of time to make the catch and lay claim to the stage win – the gap rising to more than three minutes and holding steady for much of the stage.
With the efforts of the climbs kicking in however, the break started to fade – the day’s intermediate sprint points already mopped up, it was unlikely the escape was going to last until the end.
The catch was made with 15 kilometres remaining and the speed was kept high to the finish with no chance of any other riders escaping.
In the sprint finish, Viviani came around his lead man before the final corner, but he in turn was then overtaken by Sagan for the win.
Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing) finished behind his team mate Rohan Dennis who now takes over the race lead. A shorter stage awaits riders on Saturday, but this is by no means an easy day. The race’s Queen Stage is a comparatively short 187km in length, but sees two tough categorised climbs before the summit finish in Terminillo. This stage will be the one where the GC riders will really look to make their presence felt.
Peter Sagan – “I’d like to thank my teammates for their great job today! We are all very happy with this victory. BORA-hansgrohe is the best team! Today was a windy day and everybody was afraid of the wind in the last 50km, but in tht end, nothing happened. I imagine the peloton reached the finish without legs, but the positive aspect was that in the last 2km there was a bit of crosswind, so a lot of riders lined up, and that made positioning much easier. However, as I said before, this season has just started and I hope this isn’t my last victory.”
