News: Adam Yates for Tirreno-Adriatico

Britain’s Adam Yates heads powerful Mitchelton-SCOTT squad for Tirreno-Adriatico that starts on March 13 and finishes on the 19th – stellar line up includes Geraint Thomas

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News: Adam Yates for Tirreno-Adriatico

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Mitchelton-SCOTT head to Tirreno-Adriatico with a strong team on the hunt for success, with a stacked field of stage racers set to do battle over seven days in Italy. Brit Adam Yates will return to action after a solid showing at Ruta Del Sol back in February and the 26-year-old will be joined by a powerful team including Australian time trial champion Luke Durbridge and the experienced American Brent Bookwalter.

Mitchelton-SCOTT Team
Brent Bookwalter (USA, 35)
Luke Durbridge (AUS, 27)
Alex Edmonson (AUS, 25)
Michael Hepburn (AUS, 27)
Damien Howson (AUS, 26)
Chris Juul-Jensen (DEN, 29)
Adam Yates (GB, 26)

The Course
Bookended by time trials, an opening team time trial and closing individual time trial and lacking a true mountain-top finish or pure climber’s stage, on paper this year’s Tirreno Adriatico looks tailor-made for general classification contenders with a strong ability in the race against the clock. With gnarly, lumpy stages a heavy occurrence, the challenge for the smaller men will not only be to control the punchy riders who can benefit from bonus seconds and avoid getting caught out in hectic finishes, but also to find valuable seconds ahead of the decisive last day.

The Competition
As is often the case, Tirreno – Adriatico has attracted a stellar line-up of riders for the 54th edition of the race. Two-time winner of the race Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) will start amongst the favourites for the overall as will UAE Tour winner Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo-Visma). Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), Jakob Fuglsand (Astana Pro Team) Thibaut Pinot (Groupama -FDJ), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck – Quick Step) and Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) are just some of the other GC contenders on the startlist.
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Brit Adam Yates took an impressive stage win on stage five in 2018 on his way to finishing fifth overall. The team have two other top 10 finishes on the GC at Tirreno-Adriatico, again with Adam Yates in 2015, finishing ninth and on the other occasion with Australian Cameron Meyer who finished 10th overall in the team’s debut year in 2012. The team also won the opening stage team time trial that year, while former rider Matt Goss took a stage win on stage two back in 2013 to take our tally to three stage wins.

Adam Yates: “After Ruta, I had a chance for a few days of good recovery and since then training has been going really well. Tirreno is usually my first big goal of the season, but this year without a real mountain top finish it could be tricky to find some time before the last TT, so I’ll concentrate on trying to win a stage like last year. We’ve got a super strong team for the TTT at the beginning, so hopefully we can gain some time there and from then on it could be a matter of fighting for a couple of seconds here or there.”

Matt White – Sports Director: “A race like Tirreno has a field as good as you’ll find all year and a lot of the best GC riders and classics stars have chosen it as their race of choice in the month of March. For us it’s a perfect race to prepare the core of our classics group and with a new parcour I would expect to see a very tight battle, where the race will be decided by a handful of seconds”

Tirreno-Adriatico Race Details:
Wednesday, 13th March: Stage 1 (TTT) – Lido di Camaiore to Lido di Camaiore, 21.5km
Thursday, 14th March: Stage 2 – Camaiore to Pomarance, 195km
Friday 15th March: Stage 3 – Pomarance to Foligno, 226km
Saturday 16th March: Stage 4 – Foligno to Fossombrone,221km
Sunday 17th March: Stage 5 – Colli al Metauro to Recanati, 180km
Monday 18th March, Stage 6 – Matelica to Jesi, 195km
Tuesday 19th March: Stage 7 (ITT) – San Benedetto del Tronto to San Benedetto del Tronto, 10km

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