Jonas Vinegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) continued to dominate Tirreno-Adriatico with another crushing victory on stage 6 atop Monte Petrano, following his crushing stage 5 win yesterday.
The Visma-Lease A Bike leader launched his blistering attack with six kilometres to go on the steep final climb with no riders able to stay on his wheels.
The Dane followed a counter-attack from Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) as the last rider of the breakaway, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), was about to be caught. But, a few hundred meters later, Vingegaard was off solo leaving a select group to battle for the other podium spots.
Vingegaard celebrated as he crested the summit for the win, 26 seconds ahead of a chasing group led home by Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Hindley.
The fight for GC classification heated up in the second chase group, with Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) making his move in the final kilometre to take fourth place and move up in the general classification. Tom Pidcock (Ineos-Grenadiers) was fifth and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) took sixth place.
In the overall standings, Vingegaard’s lead in the general classification is seemingly unassailable with one stage to go. Ayuso, who claimed bonus seconds for his runner-up finish, is in second place at 1:24 down and Hindley remains in the third spot at 1:52.
Vingegaard admits that he didn’t have to go for the victory today as he is already in control of Tirreno-Adriatico.
“I did it just because I like winning. The team also pulled the whole day today, and once again, it's super nice to pay them off today, and also for me, it's nice that I'm able to to win again today. And two stage wins is a perfect week for us, and now we just have to keep the jersey tomorrow until the end," he said.
The Dane took advantage of the multiple accelerations by Hindley and his team on the final climb to make his decisive move that no one could follow.
“They did a very high pace, and at that moment, we were thinking that it was it was even good for us because if I wanted to attack, then it was good with a high pace. And then Jai Hindley went, I went a few times and then at one point I decided to try to attack myself, and then from there, it was just a time trial to the finish.”
In 2022, Vingegaard finished second overall at Tirreno-Adriatico, and last year, he was third at Paris-Nice. His current form bodes well for the upcoming season.
“I think I'm in better shape than I was last year and the year before. So of course I'm very happy with how everything went here. I can be happy and satisfied with how we rode as a team as well," he said.
The closing stage of Tirreno-Adriatico will take the riders on an uncomplicated 154km run around San Benedetto del Tronto on the Adriatic coast with a pan-flat finishing circuit where a bunch sprint is expected.
How it Unfolded
The expected GC battle for the top 10 positions took place on stage 7 with the final climb up the long (10.2km) and steep ( 7.9% average) Monte Petrano - one of the most difficult mountains we’ve seen so far in any race this season. Several smaller climbs and hills punctuated the bulk of the 180km day, though the action was focussed within the final 10km.
Six riders did not take the start including Romain Bardet who crashed yesterday and finished over 20 minutes down.
The urgency to get into the break animated the beginning of the stage after they left Sassotetto. Unfortunately, a crash after a touch of wheels early on brought many riders down including Max Poole (dsm-firmenich PostNL) who was taken away to receive medical assistance.
After multiple attacks, three riders, Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Nans Peters (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), managed to escape the peloton.
They were soon joined by Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X), Axel Zingle (Cofidis), Iván García Cortina (Movistar), and Nikias Arndt (Bahrain-Victorious), making it nine riders off the front with 140km to go.
Visma-Lease a Bike settled in at the front of the peloton to control the pace for race leader Jonas Vingegaard, keeping the gap around the two-minute mark for the next 100 kilometres.
Healy launched multiple attacks, upping the pace which fractured the break, One by one riders dropped off, starting with Alaphilippe. Staying with Healy at the front were his teammate Carapaz, Leknessund and Garcia. As well as thinning the group out to four riders, Healy's pace also kept the peloton at bay, 1:45 behind at 40km to go on the climb up Pian di Trebbio.
Behind in the peloton, second in the general classification, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) suffered a mechanical on the climb, forcing him to expend energy to chase back onto the pack.
Healy put in another dig to drop Garcia before he had to call it a day, leaving only Carapaz and Leknessund off the front. The duo continued on together but their gap was only 1:37 at the bottom of Monte Petrano, not enough time to stay away for the stage win.
Sensing the danger, Carapaz attacked solo, while Bora-Hansgrohe came to the front of the reduced peloton to set up their leader Hindley.
Hindley attacked inside of 7km to go with Vingegaard and Ayuso quickly jumped on his wheel, but a few hundred meters later, race leader Vingegaard stamped on the pedals and simply accelerated away in the eventual race-winning move.
Hindley and Ayuso continued together to sprint up at the finish line for the all-important time bonus seconds for second place with Del Torro closing brilliantly for fourth place.
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