Tejay van Garderen was looking forward to Sunday’s queen stage at Tirreno-Adriatico, confident that he could have challenged for victory and taken the race lead. Fortunately, thanks to BMC’s victory in the opening team time trial and some consistent riding in the other stages, van Garderen still has a shot at victory.
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He is currently only nine seconds behind race leader Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) with only Monday’s rolling stage to Cepagatti and then the likely decisive final 10.1km time trial on the San Benedetto del Tronto seafront on Tuesday. His BMC teammates Damiano Caruso and Greg van Avermaet are also at nine seconds, with Bob Jungels (Trek-Segafredo) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) possible threats at 11 seconds in the overall standings.
Van Garderen praised the decision to protect the riders’ safety and cancel the stage to Monte San Vicino on Sunday but regretted losing the opportunity to show his form and try to set up overall victory on the 10km climb to the finish.
“It’s definitely good that people are looking out for us and that we’re not forced to re-enact another Stelvio style day,” van Garderen said via the BMC team.
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