Tirreno-Adriatico: Sagan shows but Merlier wins stage 2 sprint

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Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix) took his first win of the season after out-sprinting Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) for the first road stage of Tirreno-Adriatico in Sovicille.

The Belgian jumped out of Peter Sagan's (TotalEnergies) wheel in the closing metres of the 219-kilometre stage to take a clear victory, while Kooij edged out Kaden Groves (BikeExchange-Jayco) in a photo finish for second place.

Sagan finished fourth after launching the sprint from behind Quickstep-AlphaVinyl's two-man lead out. Merlier, though, had timed his charge to the front perfectly, and despite the fast finish of Kooij, the young Dutchman simply had no time or space to mount any real challenge to the Alpecin-Fenix rider.

"It feels really good," Merlier said after the finish. "The shape is already good for a long time, but the results didn't work out so I'm happy I can take the first victory here in Italy.

"It was really hectic again," he said of the finish. "The first goal of the day was to survive the mountains. In the end, it was just the guys of the team bringing me in a good position and it was all for myself – I needed to sprint to the finish.

"We'll see," he noted, referring to designs on adding to his win total at the race. "We already have the first victory – that was the goal of the week – and now we'll go for more."

The stage always looked set to come down to a sprint finish, though UAE Team Emirates had looked to throw a spanner in the works after Marc Soler attacked on the final hill of the day at 20 kilometres to go. The Spaniard managed to stick it out on his own until the three-kilometre mark before the sprint squads took over to battle for victory.

"[The chase] was hectic also because we didn't know the time gap," Merlier said. "But in the end, we were there, and we closed the gap."

Alpecin-Fenix were among the more prominent teams on the final run to the line, fighting with Israel-Premier Tech, Groupama-FDJ, and TotalEnergies for supremacy. It was QuickStep who looked to have stolen a march in the final kilometre, though, moving to the front with a mini lead out for Davide Ballerini.

However, the Belgian squad didn't quite get the timing right on the final launch, and the Italian was swamped in the mad dash for the line. First Sagan, at 150 metres to go, then Merlier, who came around the outside at 100 to go, went past. Groves and Kooij used Merlier's slipstream to get past too, though the day was Merlier's.

Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) continues in the blue leader's jersey after a quiet day in the saddle. He leads Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) by 11 seconds, while Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) remains in third, though a second closer at 17 down after nabbing a bonus at the intermediate sprint.

How it unfolded

The first road stage of Tirreno-Adriatico was also the longest, clocking in at 219 kilometres from Camaiore by the coast, across the Tuscan provinces of Pisa and Siena, to the finish in Sovicille.

It would be a stage of two halves, with the first 90 kilometres or so being almost pan-flat before a long series of small hills lay between the riders and the flat finish. A day for the sprinters looked likely from the off, given they could make it over the lumps on the profile.

With just one classified climb lying on the stage route and a long ride to the finish awaiting the peloton, there was little appetite to battle over the breakaway early on. It was no surprise, then, that the five-man move was made up entirely of Italian ProTeams.

Jhonatan Cañaveral, Davide Gabburo (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Umberto Marengo (Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli), and Davide Bais and Francesco Gavazzi (Eolo-Kometa) were the men who made the move, the quintet swiftly gifted a gap of over seven minutes by the relaxed peloton.

As was easily predictable from a glance at the stage profile, little of note happened in the opening half of the stage. With nothing for the break to fight over and no climbs of note to throw obstacles in the way of the peloton, the opening hours of the stage were little more than an exercise in getting kilometres in the legs.

By the time the breakaway made it to the first – unclassified – hills of the stage, their advantage had fallen to five minutes as Lotto Soudal and Ineos Grenadiers controlled the pacemaking in the peloton.

The race continued to roll along in stasis for another hour or so from that point until the break hit the day's only climb of note – La Pineta, which measured in at 5.6 kilometres at 5 per cent. There, the breakaway riders finally went their separate ways, with Gabburo and Bais jumping away on the attack.

Bais proved the strongest on the ascent, dropping his compatriot and going it alone over the top to claim the five KOM points to grab the first green mountains jersey of the race. Gavazzi came across on the way down to make it two Eolo-Kometa men out front.

Further back, the remainder of the break were brought back to the peloton, one by one, with Gabburo surviving until 40 kilometres to go, leaving Bais and Gavazzi as the last survivors. The pair rolled over the day's intermediate sprint, located at the top of a hill, of course.

Back in the peloton, then only 30 seconds down, points jersey wearer Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) jumped out of the peloton to grab a bonus second for third place before leading the group down the other side.

On the hill, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) and Anthony Perez (Cofidis) made a move from the peloton, sweeping past Bais and Gavazzi with 20 kilometres to go before the Spaniard pushed on alone.

Groupama-FDJ led the chase behind on behalf of sprinter Arnaud Démare, though the French squad failed to make much of an impression into Soler's lead, which held at 30 seconds as he reached the flat final 10 kilometres.

Soler's adventure finally came to an end at three kilometres from the line after a spirited battle that saw the 28-year-old hold off the charging peloton for far longer than expected upon his initial attack.

From that point onwards, it was all down to the sprinter's teams, with a multitude of squads swapping back and forth at the head of the peloton in the closing kilometres of the stage. TotalEnergies and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl looked to have the upper hand on the final run, but it was Merlier who prevailed in the final metres.