The opening sprint stage had an exciting finale in Lido di Camaiore as just minutes after his teammate Primoz Roglic on in Paris-Nice, Wout van Aert took a brilliant sprint win and is the first leader of Tirreno-Adriatico after beating Caleb Ewan and Fernando Gaviria in the sprint.
Positive: Vendrame with a brilliant 4th place in such competition.
Negative: Was expected with so many sprinters on the line, Viviani was the main one to miss out on the fight.
The Route
One of the reasons the classics riders usually come to Tirreno-Adriatico is because of it's long stages and this year is no exception. The longest stage of the race with 226.3 kilometers set to be ridden, it's one for the puncheurs or the sprinters that are able to resist the climbing on paper and then still have a bit of explosivity for the sprint.
It's a tricky finish but it will be ridden twice, before the final circuit there are some decent climbs summiting with 71.3 and 57.3Km to go (this one 3.5Km at 6.9% can cause some damage if the pace is high), then the riders will tackle the final climb for the first time finishing up with 26.6Km to go. That'll guarrantee the riders know what they'll have to tackle, and that is...
Again, not a brutal climb and it can see some sprinters resist and battle it out to the finish, but it will depend on the pace set on those first 6Km of it, it's the difference between suffocating the sprinters or letting them have a much shorter and sharper effort. Still, the roughest part of the climb is it's final 1.5 and the gradients of 6% won't be easy, near the finish it is very windy and can be deceiving.
The Weather
There is a meaningful breeze from the southwest, there will be some crosswinds throughout most of the day but the roads aren't very exposed, as for the final climb it will mostly have a headwind, despite not being very exposed too.
The Favourites
It's a day for those sprinters that can climb. Some years ago you'd say the puncheurs or the climbers who can sprint very well, but at the moment it's the opposite we have sprinters who can easily go over climbs like this (well they aren't sprinters, but they sprint just as well). I expect a bunch finish, lots of teams with interests, final climb slowly ramps up, attacks won't go far and it'll be a gradual rise of pace until a sprint in the final few hundred meters.
The finale has Wout van Aert written all over, seeing how fast he's sprinting and how strong he climbs, he will like a long sprint whilst Mathieu van der Poel would prefer a more explosive sprint. The fact is that even with the amount of specialists on the start it's hard to overlook them. Still we have riders who some years ago would be deemed as absolute men to beat in a finale like this like Peter Sagan or Sonny Colbrelli, you also have Davide Ballerini who should be able to hang on to the finish and has a mighty sprint, riders like today's 4th place Andrea Vendrame, Ivan Cortina or Alex Aranburu who on paper can do really well too.
You've got puncheurs with a strong sprint and obviously Julian Alaphilippe needs to be mentioned in a finale like this, Deceuninck will want a race as hard as possible if they want him to win. Michal Kwiatowski, Robert Stannard, Tim Wellens or Greg van Avermaet who would also benefit from a hard day and then have a strong sprint at the end, possibly attack.
Lastly from the climbers, I don't think it's a day for them but when you've got riders like Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogacar in good form, they can sprint very well and will arrive at the finish fresher than all of the riders mentioned above for sure, João Almeida, Giulio Ciccone, Sergio Higuita and Patrick Konrad are good examples of the same situation.
Prediction Time
⭐ Sagan, Colbrelli, Kwiatowski, GV.Avermaet, Bernal, Pogacar, Almeida, Higuita
Finale has Wout written all over, didn't think he'd win already today but doing so reassures me about tomorrow. I think he'll have a big tilt at the GC, but foremost he has a chance to get several stages.
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