Tao Geoghegan Hart again went close to victory at Tirreno-Adriatico but he was beaten once more by Primož Roglič, who used his powerful sprint finish into the headwind near the top of the Sassotetto climb to claim stage 5.
Local hero Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) also edged past Geoghegan Hart with a bike throw at the line to take second, with the Ineos Grenadiers rider a disappointed third.
Roglič took a ten-second time bonus and so also took the race leader’s blue jersey from Leonard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe). Geoghegan Hart moved up two places to sixth overall at 19 seconds, but he had hoped for a different race and a different result.
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The strong winds and cold conditions had a massive impact on the stage, especially on the 12.5km climb to the finish, which had been moved from the summit to a valley junction two kilometres lower.
“I thought this was going to be the day to make some big time differences but the weather changed all that,” Geoghegan Hart told Cyclingnews as he put on layers of extra dry clothing for the descent to the team buses at the foot of the climb.
Geoghegan Hart was shivering as he undressed and then covered up, but knew he had to take off his sweat-soaked underlayers and put a thermal undervest, jerseys, jackets and gloves for the descent.
The wind blew down the finish area at around 50kph, just as it had done on much of the climb to the finish.
The wind nullified attacks for much of the climb but then initially helped solo attacker Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious).
“It was one of the strangest mountain finishes I’ve ever done,” Geoghegan Hart told Cyclingnews, as he grabbed his bike and set off for the descent as quickly as possible. He only slowed to fist bump teammates Tom Pidcock, Magnus Sheffield and Lauren De Plus, who had helped during the windswept stage.
“There were five kilometres of block headwind in the first half of the climb,” Geoghegan Hart explained.
“Then there was a headwind and then a tailwind in the hairpins and straights as the road changed direction. The racing was really on and off and the wind was blowing down the mountain at us.”
Geoghegan Hart rubbed shoulders with Roglič on Thursday’s uphill finish in Tortoreto but ultimately had to succumb to the Slovenian’s finishing power.
He had similar regrets for the Sassotetto mountain finish.
“Even in the sprint, I thought the line was suddenly there, but we sprinted into a headwind,” he said.
“Another one got away, but what can you do? You’ve just got to give it your all. Now we can only see how Saturday’s last hilly stage goes.”
