Van Avermaet denies Sagan on Tirreno-Adriatico stage 6

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A curious edition of Tirreno-Adriatico took another twist on its penultimate day in Cepagatti as Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) out-sprinted world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) from a small breakaway group to claim stage victory and move into the overall lead.

If the cancellation of Sunday’s stage to Monte San Vicino had presented the likes Van Avermaet, Sagan and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) with an unexpected opportunity to win the race overall, they demonstrated on Monday that they had every intention of grabbing it.

The trio were part of an elite eight-rider group that cannily snuck off the front on the first of two laps around the finishing circuit in Cepagatti. Together with Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky), they were the final survivors, fending off the furious pursuit behind to fight it out for stage honours.

Kwiatkowski made a long, searing effort in the final kilometre that burnt off first Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep) and then the race leader Stybar, before Sagan sprung into life and careered past him with 200 metres to go.

After a string of near misses, it seemed as though the world champion, today wearing the red points jersey, was going to land his first win since claiming the world title in Richmond last year, but Van Avermaet – no longer, it seems, the eternal second – fought back to come around Sagan at the death.

In truth, Van Avermaet had contributed the least in the eight-man move that was powered by Tinkoff and the Etixx-QuickStep trio of Stybar, Gaviria and Matteo Trentin. With teammate Tejay van Garderen, on the same time as him overall and a far stronger time triallist, in the chasing peloton, Van Avermaet felt he had a cast-iron alibi.

“I tried to save myself for the finish because we had only Tejay and Caruso in the group behind so it was not the best situation,” Van Avermaet said afterwards.

At one point, the eight leaders had an advantage of 35 seconds over the peloton, but the fragmented bunch closed to within touching distance of their coattails on the final run-in to the line, but couldn’t make the junction.

Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) showcased his ferocious finishing speed by winning the fragmented bunch sprint for 5th place, 7 seconds down on Van Avermaet. Alejandro Valerde, whose Movistar team had been active in chasing the move, placed 6th, ahead of Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida).

The ten-second time bonus for the stage win was enough to lift Van Avermaet into the blue jersey of race leader, seven seconds ahead of Stybar, who battled gamely to hold on before yielding in those breathless final metres.

Sagan, meanwhile, lies in third place overall, 8 seconds down on Van Avermaet, though all three could yet face a stiff challenge in the short final time trial from Bob Jungels (Etixx-QuickStep), who lies 4th at 21 seconds.

“It’s not my speciality,” Van Avermaet said. “10k is pretty long for me. I’m better in prologues but I’ll try. It’s a bit of a strange situation that I’m going for the GC in Tirreno.” 

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