Tirreno-Adriatico: Alaphilippe wins stage 2 in Pomarance

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It had to be him. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) has seemingly forgotten how to lose in these opening weeks of the season and the Frenchman duly chalked up his fifth win of the campaign when he claimed the uphill sprint in Pomarance on stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico.

Alaphilippe was well-positioned throughout a breathless finale that saw a volley of attacks, most notably from Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), and he produced a powerful sprint to take the spoils ahead of Greg Van Avermaet (CCC) and Alberto Bettiol (EF-Education First).

Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) placed fifth in the reduced group sprint, just behind Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal), and the Briton inherits the blue jersey of race leader from his teammate Michael Hepburn.

All eyes were on a different blue jersey in the finale at Pomarance, however, and from the moment Alaphilippe moved across to track the last of Roglic's attacks with a little over a kilometre remaining, there was an air of inevitability about the day's result.

Alaphilippe sat poised in second wheel as the road kicked upwards towards the finish, and remained in situ when Laurens De Plus and then Evgeny Shalunov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) took up the reins with 500 metres to go. When the Arrivo banner reared into view, Alaphilippe unsheathed a sharp sprint. Behind, Van Avermaet had already launched his effort, but he never looked like getting on terms with the seemingly irresistible Alaphilippe.

"I'm just so happy. I know that after the stage of yesterday we lost a lot of time so I tried to win a stage and today was a good opportunity," said Alaphilippe, who won Strade Bianche on Saturday.

"We controlled the final with the team, everything was going my way like perfect, and then I pushed myself full gas until the line. I surprise myself day after day, and tomorrow is also a good opportunity for Elia [Viviani] in the sprint."

Deceuninck-QuickStep and Mitchelton-Scott were prominent in leading the reduced peloton on the rippling roads that led towards the finish in Pomarance, and their pace proved too much for many, including Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), while Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) lost contact following a puncture with 22km to go.

Alaphilippe left it to his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Zdenek Stybar to chase the active Roglic's initial move, which came with 3km to go in the company of Simon Clarke (EF Education First) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), after Jakon Fuglsang (Astana) had strung out the leading group with a rasping acceleration.

A determined Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) bridged across alone to Roglic, Lutsenko and Clarke, and the group swelled to five soon afterwards when Stybar - winner in Pomarance in 2016 - joined them. Alaphilippe, meanwhile, bided his time in the fragmenting main group, and his patience was rewarded when Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) took it upon himself to lead the chase.

"The race decides the tactics, but for sure we talked during the race together," Alaphilippe said of his tandem act with Stybar. "We had to jump together in the finale if there were attacks, and there were a lot of attacks. Styby was in the last group that went away, and in the end I just had to control behind and do a good sprint when we caught them. We did really perfect, it was a really good job from all my team."

How it unfolded

For the Tirreno-Adriatico gruppo, the 195km from Camaiore to Pomarance provided a healthy deposit of miles to be banked in the run-up to Milan-San Remo, a week from Saturday, but the distance did not deter a group of attackers from escaping early.

Markel Irizar (Trek-Segafredo), Stepan Kurianov (Gazprom-RusVelo), Natnael Berhane (Cofidis), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF) and Sebastian Schönberger (Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia) broke clear in the opening kilometres and quickly formed a solid working alliance to build up a maximum lead of 4 minutes over the peloton.

Michael Hepburn wore the blue jersey of race leader by dint of leading Mitchelton-Scott across the finish line in Wednesday's opening team time trial, but the Australian did not stand on ceremony here. Instead, he worked diligently to help bring the race back together ahead of the finale in support of his team leader Adam Yates.

There are more demanding stages to come over the weekend at Tirreno-Adriatico, but stage 2 provided an early taste of the punchy fare on offer in the Race of the Two Seas. The speed in the peloton was ratcheting upwards long before the escapees were pegged back with 13km to go, while the bunch had also lost Gianni Moscon (Team Sky), who abandoned on the stage.

Peter Sagan, still recovering from a recent illness, lost touch with the bunch after he sustained a puncture with a shade over 20km remaining, and the winnowing process continued on the unclassified hills that led towards Pomarance in the province of Pisa, with only 50 or so riders left in contention by the finish.

The break was swept up with 13km to go, while the first telling attack came from Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe), who attacked with 6km remaining only to be pegged back a kilometre later. Roglic and Dumoulin caught the eye with their ambition on the approach to Pomarance, and both men should be in the shake-up for final overall victory this week.

Adam Yates leads his teammate Brent Bookwalter in the overall standings ahead of stage 3, with Roglic just 7 seconds back in third. Dumoulin lies 6th, at 22 seconds, while Alaphilippe is now up to 8th overall, 27 seconds off the pace.

"I'm not sure how long I'll hold onto it, but we'll try our best and see how it goes," Yates said of his overall lead. "Tomorrow's a sprint stage then we have a few punchy, tricky stages and like I said yesterday, there's no real hard, long mountain stage, a lot of hard short stages, so we'll see how the legs are and take it from there."

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