Mollema wins stage 2 of Coppi e Bartali

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Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) claimed his first win of the 2018 season, taking out an uphill sprint win over Team Sky's Diego Rosa on stage 2 of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali.

Mollema had a strong start to the season with fourth place overall in the Volta ao Algarve, but had a bad Paris-Nice due to an infection. He was pleased to find that he had recovered his form.

"I am happy with the win today, especially after the last two weeks; I was not feeling too good, my blood values were not good, and I was feeling tired all the time," Mollema said. "In Paris-Nice I could see something was off: I didn't have the right legs, and I couldn't train very hard in the last weeks. Luckily in the last couple of days, I already felt much better.

"Only on Monday evening did we decide that I could start here, and I was not sure about the form and how my body would react to racing again. But yesterday already I felt really good. It's strange how things can change in one week's time."

Rosa finished two seconds behind, but gained the overall race lead after the first stage breakaway riders, Pascal Eenkhoorn (LottoNl-Jumbo) and Lawson Craddock (EF Education First-Drapac) were distanced on the short, punchy 130km stage from Riccione to Sogliano al Rubicone.

In the finale, the peloton tackled a tough climb of the Ville di Monte Tiffi - a 4.7km climb averaging 7.7% - three times, cresting the last ascent with 8.8 rolling kilometers remaining before an uphill push to the line.

On the penultimate ascent, Craddock was in the 'virtual' race lead as Eenkoorn was distanced and looked set to take the jersey after starting the stage with a minute advantage on most of the favourites. But a crash on the descent ruined his chances, despite a spirited chase.

"After chasing all the way to the finish, I lost too much time to take the leader's jersey. I'm more disappointed than hurt," Craddock said. "The team did such a great job all day and without the crash I'm confident I could have repaid their efforts with the leader's jersey."

Craddock dropped to fifth overall at 36 seconds, while Rosa who claimed the race lead. "With six or seven kilometres to go we had a group of seven riders. I was trying to control things a little bit as I knew I had the jersey at that point," Rosa said, having began the stage with a 13 second advantage on Mollema. "With around 300 metres to go Mollema started his sprint but I couldn't pass him. But we went more for the GC than the stage today and now we are the leader.

"Tomorrow we should have a sprint stage and then we have the individual time trial on Sunday. I'm obviously not a super specialist, but we've been working a lot on the time trial bike this winter and I hope I can do a good performance," Rosa said.

Mollema has a seven second deficit to Rosa in the overall to make up, most likely in the time trial.

"It will probably come down to the TT," Mollema agreed. "It is really hard with a steep climb also, so we will see."

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