Tirreno-Adriatico: Woods wins stage 3

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Michael Woods (EF Pro Cycling) won an uphill sprint for the victory on stage 3 of the Tirreno-Adriatico, taking over the race lead in Saturnia.

The Canadian outsprinted Rafał Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the final kilometre after the duo broke clear of the main group atop the wall of the Poggio Murella. Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) finished third, leading the chasing group home 20 seconds adrift.

With the Poggio Murella (1.6km at 10.7 per cent) featuring twice on a hilly stage in the province of Grosseto, climbers were set to shake up the general classification.

Woods and Majka started the day 20 seconds down on the race leader Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) and with bonus seconds available on the line, Woods moved into a comfortable race lead.

“I looked at the stage before coming here and recognised that this would be a good one for me, particularly with the course being so difficult and so challenging,” Woods said in a post-race interview. “The guys on my team rode amazing, did some great work for me, and I had no choice but to step up my game.

“It will be another challenging day [stage 4] followed by another challenging day, so the GC certainly is not over and it will be a long week, but we have a strong team here."

Woods will compete in the 2020 UCI Road World Championships set to take place in Imola from September 24-27. "I love Italy," he said. "It’s one of my favourite places in the world to race. The courses always suit me and they are super hard, super challenging, and I like that. Hopefully, I can continue that going into Imola.”

How it unfolded

A breakaway of eight riders took upon themselves to first test the difficulty of Poggio Murella, the day’s hardest climb. The gruelling ascent averaged 7.5 per cent but at times ramped up to 21 per cent on a concrete surface and was expected to put top riders to a test in the final kilometres of a hilly stage. With 217km on the menu, it first appeared after 135km and then again after 208km, just 8.5km from an uphill finish in Saturnia.

Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ), Alessandro Tonelli (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane), Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain McLaren), Nathan van Hooydonck (CCC Team), Dimitri Claeys (Cofidis), Matthew Holmes (Lotto Soudal), Pascal Eenkhoorn (Jumbo-Visma) and Marco Frapporti (Vini Zabu-KTM) enlisted for that effort and were soon ahead by nearly four minutes as the peloton left Follonica.

The group managed a gap of three and a half minutes after 130km of racing and headed to the categorized climb with Eenkhoorn as the winner of the intermediate sprint. The Dutchman held on as Matthew Holmes paced the group but it was Thomas who scaled the concrete-surfaced climb first. The Frenchman didn’t wait for his companions and embarked on a solo journey, quickly getting into a time trial mode and extending his lead over the chasers to 45 seconds.

Back in the pack things stayed calm and Ineos Grenadiers assumed control of affairs after the climb.  The British team was unable to eat into the gap quickly and with 65 kilometres remaining things were looking a bit brighter for the Groupama-FDJ’s rider. Thomas led the peloton by 4:10 at this point and chasers, who meanwhile lost Tonelli, by 1:30.

While Geraint Thomas and his teammates didn’t seem to panic, alarm bells set off in EF Pro Cycling ranks. Led by the Ecuadorian champion Jonathan Caicedo, the entire team took to the front with 58km remaining. The American squad had a game plan and hoped to set up Michael Woods for the stage victory but received no help in organising the chase. Their effort on the hilly roads allowed to slowly but surely trim down the gap and pushed it below 3 minutes with 40km to go.

Up front, Thomas sat up and the seven worked together, hoping to retain a margin big enough to get them over the top of Poggio Murella ahead of the chasing pack. Hope faded quickly, though, as EF Pro Cycling riders continued to set high pace on an uncategorised climb of Manciano.

With 26km remaining, Thomas gave up first and Holmes started pushing on, dragging Pernsteiner, Frapporti and Eenkhoorn along. The Italian rider accelerated on the descent leading to the climb but got nowhere as Holmes and Pernsteiner gave it one last try on the incline.

The chase was over at that point: Deceuninck-Quick-Step and Ineos Grenadiers could see the last breakaway riders up on the climb and focused on pacing their riders in what was still a large group. Team Sunweb’s Michael Matthews wasn’t part of it, struggling with mechanical issues at the back as Florian Senechal (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) attempted an early attack.

The Frenchman’s move didn’t change things one bit and was shut down as the decimated group passed Pernsteiner and caught up with Holmes. With only a number of riders in contention on a gruelling incline, Michael Woods came to the front, eager to finish the job his team started earlier.

The Canadian broke clear atop of the climb, having set pace that proved just a little too much for Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Aleksandr Vlasov, and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana). The chasing trio was soon joined by eight more riders, including Rafał Majka (Bora-hansgrohe), who shot past the group and launched himself in pursuit with 7.5km left.

The Pole caught up with the Canadian and the two soldiered on towards the finish, benefiting from lack of cooperation in the group behind. Jack Haig of Mitchelton-Scott was the only rider putting in the work but his effort to help Simon Yates was simply not enough.

As Yates, Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-Quick-Step), Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe), Tanel Kangert (EF Pro Cycling), Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb), Sergio Henao (UAE-Team Emirates), Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) dragged their feet, the gap grew to 17 seconds.

Woods and Majka held on to it in the final 4km and contested the stage win in a sprint. The Canadian rider, racing only for the sixth time since the crash that left him with a broken leg, took off early and surprised the Pole, claiming his first victory of the season and with it the overall race lead.