Contador wins Tirreno-Adriatico

Adriano Malori (Movistar) prevailed in the final stage at Tirreno-Adriatico, a 9.1km individual time trial in San Benedetto del Tronto, with a winning time of 10:13. The victory against the clock today was the second of the year for the 26-year-old Italian after his time trial win at Argentina's Tour de San Luis in January.

Four-time time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) placed second at six seconds followed by 2012 Olympic time trial champion Bradley Wiggins (Sky) in third at 11 seconds.

Reigning time trial world champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), winner of this very stage at Tirreno-Adriatico one year ago with a time six seconds faster than runner-up Malori, placed fourth this time around at 15 seconds.

Overnight general classification leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) started the day with a commanding 2:08 lead over Nairo Quintana (Movistar) plus a 2:15 advantage over his Tinkoff-Saxo teammate Roman Kreuziger, and the Spaniard easily defended the blue jersey with a 10:54 effort, good for 29th on the day.

The top three on general classification remained the same as Quintana put two seconds into Kreuziger over the 9.1km course, 10:51 versus 10:53, to defend his second place position ahead of the Czech rider. Contador's final margin of victory would be 2:05 over Quintana and 2:14 ahead of Kreuziger.

Alex Dowsett (Movistar), the sixth rider out of the start house in San Benedetto del Tronto, set the early benchmark of 10:33 which stood for approximately one hour until it was bettered by one second courtesy of Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano). Movistar, however, reclaimed the hot seat 30 minutes later when former Italian time trial champion Adriano Malori scorched the course for 10:13, stopping the clock over the 9.2km parcours 19 seconds faster than the Dutchman.

Malori's time then withstood the efforts of the peloton's time trial royalty as first Tony Martin (10:28), then Bradley Wiggins (10:24), followed by Fabian Cancellara (10:19) all failed to eclipse the Italian's time.

Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), who earlier this season won the time trial stage at the Volta ao Algarve (en route to overall victory) ahead of none other than Malori, Martin and Dowsett, could only manage a 10:35 effort on the day, a time ultimately good enough for seventh place.

Only 17 riders remained following Kwiatkowski, and while none would factor into the stage results there was still a matter of the top general classification riders at Tirreno-Adriatico seeking to defend or improve their final overall placings.

The top three on general classification would ultimately remain the same as Contador, Quintana and Kreuziger would all finish within three seconds of each other, while there would be some minor shuffling in the rest of the top 10. Former French time trial champion Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R La Mondiale) started the day in fifth overall, just one second down on Julian Arredondo (Trek Factory Racing), and the Frenchman beat the Colombian by 16 seconds to improve his final GC position by one place.

Mikel Nieve (Sky) would be the biggest loser in the top ten as he dropped from sixth to 10th overall after his time trial performance while Croatian road champion Robert Kiserlovski (Trek Factory Racing) improved the most, from 10th to seventh overall.

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