Julian Alaphilippe wins first uphill finish of Tirreno-Adriatico
Mar 14 2019 11:24 pm CET
Photo of Julian Alaphilippe © Mary Cárdenas / CyclingPub.com
Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Julian Alaphilippe has taken the victory of the second stage of Tirreno-Adriatico. The rider crossed the finish line ahead of Greg Van Avermaet and Alberto Bettiol.
The second stage of the Italian race was 195 kilometres long over a wavy route that featured the first climbing finish of its 2019 edition. A group of five riders escaped early on the day and took a lead of more than four minutes over the peloton, with names like Markel Irizar (Trek-Segafredo), Stepan Kurianov (Gazprom-RusVelo), Natnael Berhane (Cofidis), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF) and Sebastian Schönberger (Nero Sottoli-Selle Italia).
Just before the 10-kilometre mark, the peloton caught the chasers. Bora-hansgrohe's Peter Sagan punctured, with Rafal Majka dropping back to help his teammate to no avail. The first rider to make a move on the last climb of the day was Daniel Oss (Bora-hansgrohe) with six kilometres to go but he was caught with four kilometres to go.
More attacks followed by Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), who brought along riders like Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) and Simon Clarke (EF Education First). Soon Roglic, Lutsenko and Clarke took the lead and were soon joined by Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) and Zdenek Stybar (Deceuninck-Quick-Step).
With more than one kilometre to go, the chase group caught the five men. At the last-kilometre mark, Roglic kept going in front with Lutsenko and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) while the others stayed a few metres behind. Some metres later, they were caught again and Jumbo-Visma's Laurens De Plus took the lead to pull the reduced pack.
Alaphilippe attacked in the last metres and Greg Van Avermaet (CCC Team) stayed at his wheel but couldn't overtake him. EF Education First's Alberto Bettiol crossed the line in the third position.
Mitchelton-Scott's Adam Yates is the new leader in the overall classification.
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