Jonas Vingegaard completed a first-ever Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico double for Visma-Lease a Bike, celebrating a dominating victory in Italy as Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) won the final stage on the San Benedetto del Tronto seafront.
The final stage was always going to be about the sprinters and their teams dominated the high-speed final lap after the break was caught. The 154km stage was raced at a new record speed of 47.179 km/h.
Uno-X let a gap go in the final kilometre and Søren Wærenskjold surged towards the finish but Lidl-Trek closed down the gap and then Milan produced the speed and power to win the sprint, beating Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) and Davide Cimolai (Movistar).
Vingegaard won stage 5 and 6 in the Apennines of Abruzzo and Le Marche and so was able to finish calmly in the peloton and savour his overall victory.
He finished 1:24 ahead of Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), with Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) third overall at 1:52, as Vingegaard lifted the trident winner’s trophy. Vingegaard is the second Dane to win Tirreno-Adriatico after Rolf Sorensen won back in 1987 and 1992.
Milan hugged teammate Simone Consonni after he went to the front in the kilometre to chase down Wærenskjold. It was a team victory and a significant part was thanks to Consonni.
“Your last win is always the most special but this one is,” Milan said.
“It was a hard and tough day. It was a high pace all day. It was impressive the work the guys did for me and so I wanted to finish this race with another win.”
“It was really tough to catch the Uno-X rider in the last kilometre. For a moment I thought he’d make it to the finish but my teammate Simone Consonni did a fantastic leadout for me. It was impressive.”
“We knew the beginning of the stage would be hard and we didn’t want the break to get a big gap. There were super strong riders up the road and so we had to push a lot. That made for the super high speed.”
How it unfolded
The 154km final stage was always going to be about the sprinters and the work to make sure it happened, with the day divided between a loop inland and then five 14.5km circuits along the seafront.
After days of racing in the cold and rain, with no sign of spring just yet in central Italy, there were several non-starters, including Daniel Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe). Mikkel Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost), Max Walscheid (Jayco-AlUla), Aimé De Gendt (Cofidis) and Intermarché-Wanty duo of Biniam Girmay and Dion Smith were also absent from the sign-on and start grid.
The attacks came as soon as the flag was dropped with Ben Healy the first to move, yet again. He was soon joined by EF Education-EasyPost teammate Georg Steinhauser, Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco-AlUla), Antonio Tiberi and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) and Luke Rowe (Ineos Grenadiers), who was celebrating his 34th birthday off the front.
The six leaders opened a gap of 1:30 after just 10 kilometres but then the sprinters’ teams took control and held them at that gap. Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lidl-Trek did much of the work at the front, with Uno-X also helping later on.
Tim Merlier and Soudal-Quick Step were absent up front on the rolling roads in the hills, with the Belgian sprinter soon abandoning the race. Later Josef Černý and Bert Van Lerberghe also abandoned, leaving just Julian Alaphilippe and Kasper Asgreen to finish the race.
The final 75.4 kilometres of the stage were on the San Benedetto del Tronto circuit and after the first time through the finish, the break of six had a lead of just 25 seconds. The peloton could see them but preferred to play cat and mouse and let the six have some high-speed fun off the front and sweep up any bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint.
The quiet was only broken with 20km to go when Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) appeared to touch wheels at speed and crashed hard on his shoulder. He was unable to get up and was forced to abandon the race.
The break survived enough to hear the bell ring out for the final 14.6km lap but the speed was high and the peloton could smell a sprint finish.
Uno-X Mobility led much of the chase, with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale also hitting the front with five kilometres to go. The final corners with three kilometres to go shuffled the peloton and Uno-X Mobility were again on the front and with serious intentions.
Wærenskjold dived into the double chicane with a kilometre to go and Kristoff widely let him go and shouted at him to go solo. Milan was up front but without a teammate and there was a moment of hesitation.
Fortunately for Milan, his teammate Consonni came up from behind and produced a huge effort as if he were with Milan in the team pursuit on the track. It was enough to close the gap and set up Milan for the sprint.
The Italian had Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Kristoff on his wheel and enjoying his giant slipstream but he went down the centre of the road and simply outpowered them to the line to win his second stage of this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico. The victory also secured him the cyclamen points jersey and perhaps a promotion in the Lidl-Trek hierarchy for MIlan-San Remo and the other spring Classics.
Behind Vingegaard finished safely in the peloton to also celebrate Visma-Lease a Bike Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico stage race double victory.
Results
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