Tirreno-Adriatico stage 2: Stybar solos to victory

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Forward planning and impeccable instincts carried Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) to a stylish victory and the overall leader’s blue jersey on stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico in Pomarance.

Ahead of the race, directeur sportif Davide Bramati had identified the sinuous finale – designed by double world champion Paolo Bettini with puncheurs of his own mould firmly in mind – as one to suit a rider of Stybar’s technical ability.

Stybar was well positioned on the day’s final obstacle, the 18% slopes of the short climb of Il Cerreto, with just over three kilometres remaining, but he chose to maintain a watching brief when first Pete Kennaugh (Sky) and then Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) delivered rasping accelerations.

Ulissi’s surge snapped the reduced peloton to breaking point, ultimately creating the leading group of 20 or so riders, but as the gradient slackened towards the summit, nobody was willing to take up the reins.

Sensing the lull, Stybar duly bounded clear over the top and then swooped down the short, twisting descent that followed to open a small gap. The final 2.5 kilometres were on rippling, sinuous roads, and its rises and dips gave it the feel of an asphalt cyclo-cross course. Small wonder, then, that that a triple world champion in the discipline should feel so at home in this corner of Tuscany.

Davide Formolo (Cannondale) and Oscar Gatto (Tinkoff) put their shoulders to the wheel in a bid to peg Stybar back but made little inroads. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) fared a little better when he gave lone chase in the final kilometre, but it was too late to bring back the Czech who had time to sit up and savour his victory.

Nibali was swamped by the rest of the chasers in the final 100 metres, with world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) taking second ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data), Simon Clarke (Cannondale) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), one second down on Stybar.

“We planned it a little bit two and a half weeks ago with Bramati that this could be a stage for me. So I was pretty focused for this stage,” Stybar said. “I knew that the last two or three kilometres were very technical, which is good for me. I tried to go. I didn’t really plan to go there but I saw the opportunity, the space, and I thought ‘ok, the bunch will slow and I’ll go with everything I have.’”

Thanks to the ten-second time bonus for the stage win, Stybar holds a nine-second advantage in the overall standings, ahead of BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet and Tejay van Garderen, who each finished in the leading group, while their teammate and overnight leader Daniel Oss was dropped in the finale.

How it unfolded

The principal difficulties of Thursday’s stage were shoehorned into the final two hours of racing – the total altitude gain in the final 50 kilometres was a leg-stinging 2,000 metres – and the peloton was more than happy to ease its way into the action on leaving the start in Camaiore.

Early escapees Giorgio Cecchinel (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Simone Andreetta (Bardiani-CSF), Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Argon 18), Luis Mas Bonet (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Nikolay Mihaylov (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) and Federico Zurlo (Lampre-Merida) slipped away as soon as the flag was dropped, and the BMC-controlled gruppo was happy to give them a day pass.

The sextet built up a lead of six minutes after by the midway point, where a lowered level crossing barrier – impeccably observed by the peloton – provided the only deviation from the expected script on a cool but agreeable spring day in Tuscany.

BMC’s Taylor Phinney and Jempy Drucker spent much of the afternoon on the front of the peloton, with Greg Van Avermaet and Tejay van Garderen in mind more than ephemeral race leader Daniel Oss, and they gradually upped the ante in the final 100 kilometres.

By the time the break reached the rugged terrain of the Val di Cecina, their lead was falling steadily. Zurlo led over the top of the day’s first categorised climb, the Pian di Forno, where their advantage was down to 4:30 and it continued to fritter away thereafter.

The increasingly demanding roads in the Valle del Diavolo – the so-called ‘Devil’s Valley,’ which local lore claims inspired the lay-out of Dante’s Inferno – also triggered a thinning out process in the main peloton, with rider after rider jettisoned out the back.

The last of the escapees were eventually swept up with 9 kilometres remaining, by which point a delegation from Sky had taken over at the head of the peloton. Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) kick-started the attacking on the lower, gentler slopes of Il Cerreto – dubbed Cerretemberg by Bettini, who felt it a climb lifted from Amstel Gold Race and deposited in Tuscany – but he was brought to heel almost immediately.

Mirko Selvaggi (Androni Giocattoli) got more traction on his effort with a little under four kilometres to go, but his legs wilted as the general classification contenders massed towards the front and Pete Kennaugh upped the pace. Ulissi’s subsequent surge helped to establish an elite front group but raw power alone was never going to be enough; instead, it was Stybar’s combination of strength and imagination that won the day. 

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