Tirreno-Adriatico: Jonathan Milan wins high-speed bunch sprint on stage 7 while Juan Ayuso seals GC

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Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) secured the overall victory at Tirreno-Adriatico, finishing safely in the peloton on the final stage in San Benedetto del Tronto.

He beat Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) to the famous trident trophy by 35 seconds after the Italian scored three bonus seconds at the day’s intermediate sprint following hard work by his team to bring the early break back early.

Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) rounded out the overall podium, dropping two seconds and one place to Ganna after finishing third at the sprint. He ended up 36 seconds down on Ayuso.

Stage honours for the seventh day at the Race of the Two Seas were taken by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) as the peloton raced home for one final bunch sprint. The Italian sprinted from 200 metres out after a strong lead out from Simone Consonni.

Milan headed off a late burst by Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), while Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) rounded out the podium behind the leading duo.

Further back, a multi-rider crash took out several hopefuls, including Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), and Gijs Leemreize (Picnic-PostNL).

“I’m happy to get this second victory. I have to say always thanks to my teammates. They did a perfect lead out. It was a bit tough in the climb where I have to say I suffered a bit, but we made it through to the finish line. We are happy,” Milan said after the stage.

“I also have to say that I’m sorry that Jasper crashed in the final. It’s a really bad crash that happened in the last few hundred metres. I hope no-one is really bad.

“But, all-in-all, for me it was a really good Tirreno. I am really happy that we achieved the second victory after the crash that I had some days ago. Also, in these last two days it wasn’t super easy for me on the climbs, so I’m happy.”

For Magnier it was his second crash of the stage, first sliding out in a corner with 80km to go, and then hard fall in the closing 100 metres before the finish. His Soudal-QuickStep team issued a statement that the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad runner-up was assessed immediately at the finish and escaped "with some bruises and road rash", and would be examined further on Monday by team doctors. 

How it unfolded

Following Saturday’s Queen stage, the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico would be one suited to the sprinters, taking the peloton 147km from Porto Potenza Picena to the traditional finish town of San Benedetto del Tronto.

The day would bring just one climb, the 8.4km, 4.7% hill at Ripatransone after 57km, while much of the remainder of the stage would be taken up by five laps of the pan-flat 14.6km finishing circuit.

It would take 10km after the flag dropping for the break of the day to form, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) driving the move away from the peloton.

The former World Champion would be joined out front by Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Lucas Hamilton (Ineos Grenadiers), Bjoern Koerdt (Picnic-PostNL), and mountain classification leader Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè).

Ineos Grenadiers settled into work at the head of the peloton, while up the road, the five-man break raced to a 1:40 lead. The British team, likely eyeing bonus seconds for Filippo Ganna at the day’s intermediate sprint, ramped up the pace on the approach to Ripatransone, bringing the gap down under 30 seconds as the race hit the climb.

The hard pace saw much of the break brought back with 96km left to run, though Van der Poel battled on solo with 6km of the climb remaining. He wouldn’t last to the top, however, as the Ineos-led peloton dragged him back at 92km to go.

The peloton rolled over the top massed all together, with Ineos still leading the way and 46.4km to race until the group hit the intermediate sprint. Off the rear, sprinters including Olav Kooij and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) battled to get back on after getting dropped on the climb.

Ineos continued to lead down the descent and onto the finishing circuit, bringing the peloton to the intermediate sprint. There, the team’s ploy earlier pair off, with their lead-out delivering Ganna to first place for three bonus seconds.

Jonathan Milan took second place, leaving Ganna’s GC rival Antonio Tiberi in third with one bonus second and boosting Ganna up into second place overall.

From there, the focus turned to the finishing sprint – one reserved for the specialists rather than a battle for seconds among the GC contenders. Teams including Uno-X Mobility, Visma-Lease a Bike, Jayco-AlUla, Israel-Premier Tech, Soudal-QuickStep and Lidl-Trek all flowed to the front during the closing circuits, battling for position ahead of the final kilometres.

There would be no one team in control once the peloton got there, however. Jayco-AlUla looked the most organised at 2km to go with three men in front of Dylan Groenewegen.

Ganna came back to the front in time for the final kilometre, putting in one last big effort for the week. He peeled off to leave Consonni and Milan leading through the final chicane and onto the finishing straight.

Groupama-FDJ were among the teams trying to move up with the US team, while Uno-X and Tudor battled for the spot on Milan’s wheel. Jake Stewart (Israel-Premier Tech) launched the sprint on the right-hand side of the road, but Consonni took notice and pulled off to let Milan fire.

Tord Gudmestad was coming up and around Stewart with his Decathlon AG2R teammate Bennett in his wheel, but it wasn’t to be for the Irishman as Milan had enough in his legs to hold off the late challenge and win again, taking the points classification in the process.

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