Tirreno-Adriatico: Wout Van Aert wins stage 1

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Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) showed his slightly sub-par Strade Bianche was just a warm-up, and the Belgian talent dominated the opening bunch sprint in Camaiore to take the first stage win and leader's jersey of the 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico.

Van Aert hit out first and strongest, overtaking the UAE Team Emirates lead-out for Fernando Gaviria and holding off Caleb Ewan and Gaviria on the line.

The victory gives Van Aert a four-second lead in the general classification over Ewan, with Gaviria taking the third spot.

"The final straight was really long, so today it was all about the right timing. I had high speed and so when I saw the 200m sign and maybe a bit before, I thought not to wait and I launched my sprint. I had the speed to maintain it to the finish. I’m really happy," Van Aert said.

Tirreno-Adriatico is only Van Aert's second race of the season after an extended training camp in Tenerife. Although he missed out on the winning move in Strade Bianche and finished fourth in his title defence, he showed a powerful burst of speed in Camaiore and played off the well-coordinated work of his Jumbo-Visma team.

Now, Van Aert has the overall classification in his sights. "For sure I think today and at Strade Bianche we saw a strong (Jumbo-Visma) team. We’re in high spirits and big motivation for this week; starting with a win is perfect for the GC. We’ll see what the next stages bring but we’ve already achieved one goal today."

The 156km stage was straightforward and incident-free, with a six-rider breakaway mopping up the trio of mountain primes and the intermediate sprint before the sprinters' teams shut down the move inside the final 10km.

Vincenzo Albanese (Eolo-Kometa) sealed the mountains classification, taking two of the three ascents of the Monte Pitoro, while Simone Velasco (Gazprom-RusVelo) gave himself a leg up in the overall classification, taking out the three-second intermediate sprint bonus to land in fourth place overall.

Although Alpecin-Fenix and Cofidis did the lion's share of the chasing on the stage, when it came to the lead-out, Mathieu van der Poel and Tim Merlier found themselves out of position and swarmed in the rush to the line. Merlier fought through to sixth on the stage behind AG2R-Citroën's Andrea Vendrame and Luka Mezgec (Team BikeExchange). Elia Viviani fared worse, coming across a distant 20th as he still seeks to hone his lead-out train, having gone winless since moving across from Deceuninck-Quickstep in 2020.

How it unfolded

After a sizzling late-summer edition in 2020, Tirreno-Adriatico returned to its fairer spring slot and to the Lido di Camaiore. Previously a team time trial stage, the opener shifted last season and this to a two-part circuit. The 156km stage began with three laps of a 24km loop including the Monte Pitoro and closed out with another three laps of a flat 29km loop around Camaiore.

With a light breeze coming off the Tyrrhenian Sea and refreshingly cool temperatures the racing was hot from the drop of the flag, with a furious first six kilometres before the day's early breakaway went clear.

The group included Guy Niv (Israel Start-Up Nation), Mattia Bais (Androni-Sidermec), Vincenzo Albanese (Eolo-Kometa), Samuele Rivi (Eolo-Kometa), Simone Velasco (Gazprom-RusVelo) and Jan Bakelants (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert).

With points at the top of the Monte Pitoro on the line for the mountains classification jersey, the climb was a main point of animation for the breakaway with Bakelants taking the first prime but Albanese securing the first green jersey by leading the escape group across on the next two laps - the podium visit would be a huge result for Eolo-Kometa's debut WorldTour stage race.

With Lotto Soudal and Deceuninck-QuickStep patrolling the head of the peloton for their sprinters Caleb Ewan and Alvaro Hodeg, and then Cofidis and Alpecin-Fenix joining in the chase mid-stage for Elia Viviani and Tim Merlier, respectively, the breakaway had very little chance of success as their gap never grew to much more than 90 seconds. Bakelants, having missed out on the climber's jersey, sat up and went back to the peloton as the race headed to the closing circuits.

The peloton was stretched out in a long line behind Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Fenix) and Tom Bohli (Cofidis), who steadily ate into the breakaway's lead, bringing it down to one minute before the intermediate sprint in Pietrasanta with 48km to go. Having missed the chance to bring the move back before the bonus sprint, the peloton took a breather, not wanting to reel in the escapees prematurely.

In the breakaway, the sprint was hotly contested between Velasco and Bais with the Gazprom-RusVelo rider wisely following the rider from Androni and then trouncing him to take the points. Following his bonus sprint win, Velasco also sat up to enjoy the more generous shelter of the main bunch.

The gap hovered at the minute mark as the peloton bunched up and soft-pedalled behind Meurisse until 25km to go when the chasers picked up the pace and, with a sense of desperation in the breakaway, Rivi attacked the breakaway, leaving teammate Albanese behind. Niv scrambled across to Bais and Rivi but then lost contact as the leaders held a gap of 45 seconds and dropping rapidly.

Bais and Rivi tried valiantly to stay clear but with 14km to go their lead was down to 14 seconds and finally Meurisse could have a break as the sprinters' teams began to amass at the front.

On the wide and straight road with 11.5km the pair were in sight and the peloton was spread across all the available width as riders surged and swirled as lead-out trains fought to come together.

Eolo-Kometa led onto the straight, wide-open 8km long final stretch on the Via Lungomare Roma but soon ceded to the powerful WorldTour squads. With 5km to go, Movistar came through along with Lotto Soudal and a single Ineos rider, steadily pressing on the accelerator. Jumbo-Visma came up the left to bring Van Aert forward, Cofidis held the centre for Viviani, and Van der Poel was nowhere to be seen with 2.5km to go.

In the final 2km, the Dutch champion was swamped in the back as Deceuninck-Quickstep sent Kasper Asgreen to challenge Jumbo-Visma, opening a channel in the centre that allowed Van der Poel to shoot through. However, Merlier had lost his wheel and was lost in the mix. Lotto Soudal brought Ewan forward in the final kilometre but the Australian surged just too late to beat Van Aert to the line.