Tirreno-Adriatico: Van Avermaet wins stage 3

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BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet won the third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico in Arezzo on Friday. The Belgian opened his sprint with 200 metres to go on the punchy final ascent onto the Via Ricasoli, holding off Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep).

Van Avermaet’s win moved him up into the overall race lead, taking the blue leader’s jersey from Andriano Malori (Movistar). He leads the race by two seconds ahead of Sagan while Malori has dropped into third place at eight seconds back.

“I looked at stages of Tirreno-Adriatico and was confident for the third and fourth ones,” Van Avermaet said at the line.

“This finish really suits me. I also saw last year’s race when Phil (Gilbert) was third and I knew it was good finish for me, even if there were some good guys to beat. I’ve been close to a win a few times this year but I’m happy to finish it off.”

Malori lined up for the start of Stage 3 in Cascina with the hopes of maintaining his overall lead at the end of the 203km race to Arezzo. He was tied on GC, however, with runner-up Sagan, who won this stage last year and wanted to do so again in order to potentially move up into the blue leader’s jersey.

The stage included two ascents, the San Martino (54.2km) and over the Poggio alla Croce (65km), and three sprints in Castelfranco di Sopra (100km), Loro Ciuffenna (110.4km) and in Indicatore (137.4km) before finishing with five circuits, 11km each, in Arezzo. In addition, a short climb greeted the riders near the finish, which leveled off before the 200-metre finishing straight along the Via Ricasoli.

An early breakaway include Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF), Carlos Quintero (Colombia), Chad Haga (Giant-Alpecin), Danilo Wyss (BMC) and Rick Flens (LottoNL-Jumbo). Wyss picked up maximum points at the top of the two climbs to add to his leading tally in the mountain competition.

The five riders had nearly a five-minute lead with 95km to go but the efforts of Tinkoff-Saxo riders Matteo Tosatto and Christopher Juul-Jensen at the front of the field cut into their advantage as the race got closer to the finish line in Arezzo.

The breakaway had less than a minute gap with 30km to go and began to fall apart as the race neared its end. Boem and Haga were the last riders to be swept up by the field 10km later.

BMC riders moved themselves into position behind Tinkoff-Saxo as the peloton shifted focus to a bunch sprint. However, other teams were also on the hunt for a top stage placing including Team Sky and IAM Cycling, which worked their way to the mix during the last 10km.

The favourites for the overall title at Tirreno-Adriatico like Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) tucked themselves into the field in order to stay out of trouble in the hectic finale and make it safely to the finish line. Astana’s Vincenzo Nibali, however, had an untimely flat tire and was forced to burn a few matches to get himself back into the field with no time lost.

With four kilometres to go, Sagan was left with one teammate, Maciej Bodnar, to help him navigate the front of the field. He was soon left on his own but was still able to position himself well, seemingly without difficulty.

Meanwhile, Van Avermaet had the comfort of two teammates; Daniel Oss and Manuel Quinziato, to help him stay in position as the race approached the punch climb before the finish line with one kilometre to go.

Van Avermaet made his winning attack at the top of the climb with 200 metres left in the race and hung on for the stage win. The win bumped him up in the overall race lead ahead of stage 4’s 218km race from Indicatore (Arezzo) to Castelraimondo on Saturday.

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