Tirreno-Adriatico: Kittel takes out penultimate stage

Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) claimed his second victory of the 2018 Tirreno-Adriatico on Monday, beating Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) to the line on stage 6 after a messy run-in to Fano on the Adriatic coast.

Max Richeze finished third but the Quick-Step Floors lead-out man was only sprinting because Fernando Gaviria had crashed with eight kilometres remaining – an incident that almost took out Sagan himself.

Sagan was right behind Gaviria when the Colombian touched the wheel in front of him and sparked a pile-up in the middle of the bunch. Somehow, in a feat of bike handling you sense few others would be capable of, the world champion stayed upright, though he now faced a battle just to be able to contest the expected sprint finish.

After changing his rear wheel, which was broken by the rider behind him, Sagan chased back on, but that was only half the battle as he then proceeded to bunny hop roundabouts and seek the riskiest lines in order to haul himself towards the front of a reduced peloton that was by now in full swing.

Sagan perhaps paid for those efforts as he opened up his sprint from Kittel's slipstream. He started to draw up alongside the German but was never able to overhaul him, and the result goes down as a repeat of stage 2. It's the second victory of this race and of 2018 for Kittel, whose early-season woes are now a distant memory.

"I was actually just left from Quick-Step, I saw it happening like five metres behind me and I didn't really know who it was at first but then they said it was Gaviria," Kittel said of the crash.

"It's very unfortunate for him, for his team, but we tried to focus on our goal of the stage win and the sprint, and that worked very good. The boys did a very good job and I'm very very proud. On the team today there was nothing to complain about, we controlled the race, we really had one goal, we worked as one team, everyone gave 110 per cent, and I'm very happy to win this stage for the team."

The 153-kilometre penultimate stage from Numana to Fano represented a stall in hostilities in the battle for the overall title, and indeed there was no change in the general classification.

Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) finished safely in the peloton to retain his overall lead, with none of the overall contenders caught up in that crash with Gaviria, though Romain Bardet (AG2R) lost 45 seconds as a result and slipped from 12th to 14th. Moments earlier, Geraint Thomas, who lost the overall lead on stage 4 due to a jammed chain, suffered another mechanical, though he was able to re-join the peloton with the help of Gianni Moscon and Chris Froome.

Ahead of Tuesday's final-day time trial, Kwiatkowski retains a buffer of three seconds over BMC's Damiano Caruso but the Pole had tried to make it more. The stage finished with two laps of a 12.6km circuit, and the first passage of the finish line doubled as an intermediate sprint point, with time bonuses of three, two, and one seconds for the first three riders across the line.

Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), the last survivor of the day's breakaway, mopped up the first three but when Kwiatkowski went for what was left, Caruso, rather than getting involved himself, sent teammates Greg Van Avermaet and Patrick Bevin to beat him to the line and take the seconds away.

"There was actually a gap between me and Van Avermaet so of course it was difficult to take the bonus seconds but they were there so I was trying at least," said Kwiatkowski. "In the end I came out with nothing, but if I was going to lose Tirreno-Adriatico by two seconds then I'd be really angry."

How it unfolded

A bunch sprint was always the most likely outcome in Fano but that didn't deter the early breakaway hopefuls. In the opening kilometres Burghardt went clear with Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy), Jacopo Mosca (Wilier-Selle Italia) and Artem Nych (Gazprom-Rusvelo).

They built a lead of around 3:30 as the race drifted along at a sedate pace of less than 35kph.

There were two categorised climbs on the 153km route, and Mosca claimed maximum points at the first, at Offagna, after 36 kilometres. The Italian was, however, more concerned about the intermediate sprint positioned between the two climbs, and he duly swept up the points to ensure himself another day in the orange jersey.

The second climb, to Ostra came after 75km just shy of the half-way mark, but it nevertheless saw the complexion of the race change. Burghardt led the way and soon found himself opening a gap on his companions. Leading over the KOM point and onto the short descent, he decided to go it alone.

Such was his superiority, he managed to increase his lead over his three former companions, while keeping the peloton at bay. With 46km remaining, Mosca, Nych, and Neilands were swept up by the peloton but the German champion still had 3:20.

Burghardt led onto the finishing circuit and crossed the line with a minute's advantage and 25km remaining, though he would fade rather suddenly in the end and was caught with 19km left.

After an innocuous crash caused by a piece of traffic furniture forced Wilier's Jakub Mareczko to change bikes, the first lap passed relatively quietly, with Quick-Step Floors positioned en masse at the head of the peloton.

With just over 10km to go Thomas suffered his mechanical. He was still chasing when Gaviria, a favourite for the stage win, touched the wheel in front of him and hit the deck, causing several others to go down with him. Israel Cycling Academy's Guillaume Boivin looked particularly uncomfortable but finished the stage, as did Gaviria, though x-rays would later confirm a broken metacarpal in his left hand.

Gaviria's absence sewed confusion in the closing kilometres as Quick-Step were forced to reassess. They decided Zdenek Stybar would lead out Richeze, though other teams like Katusha were able to have their say in the build-up to the sprint.

Quick-Step, however, found their way back to the front in time for the tight right-hand bend with 400 metres remaining. Bob Jungels led the way, followed by Stybar, and then Richeze. It was a textbook lead-out but Richeze didn't have the speed of Gaviria, and Kittel calmly made his way past.

Sagan nearly provided what would have been, given the circumstances, a spectacular twist, but the German held firm for his second win of the week, with growing whispers as to a possible Milan-San Remo debut this weekend.

"There are good reasons to do it but, like I said before, we will decide that the day after Tirreno-Adriatico," said Kittel. "For now things are looking good but if I go to Milan-San Remo I will go for experience. I've never done that race before but for me it's a dream to go there."

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