Tirreno Adriatico: Yates Keeps Leaders Jersey

On a key day for the GC riders ahead of the Time Trial, Mathieu van der Poel wins the stage from the breakaway but Simon Yates finishes 6th and keeps the leaders jersey in Tirreno Adriatico

Tirreno Adriatico: Yates Keeps Leaders Jersey

Mitchelton-SCOTT Press Release

Mitchelton-SCOTT controlled today’s hot and fast penultimate stage of Tirreno Adriatico to keep race leader Simon Yates safe and in the race lead heading into tomorrow’s final stage, a time trial.

A large breakaway group animated the day, successfully staying away to the finish, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) claiming the stage win in explosive style, passing the solo leader Matteo Fabbro (BORA-hansgrohe) in the last 300metres. Yates finished the day in sixth place, ten seconds behind the winner and on the same time as his GC rivals ahead of tomorrow’s testing and decisive individual time trial.

The day began at a fast and furious pace with the peloton remaining together until after 60km of racing. Finally, the elastic snapped and a large breakaway group consisting of 14 riders was able to escape. The peloton initially eased up allowing the group to ride out to over five minutes, with no riders posing a threat to the overall classification, before pegging them back to a comfortable distance of two and a half minutes as the race entered the final three hilly finishing circuits.

As the leading team, Mitchelton-SCOTT took responsibility assisting with the chase to control the distance to the breakaway with the help Astana Pro Team for most of the day. The breakaway group exploded with two laps to go with riders attacking and riders from the peloton bridging across to the move. The Australian outfit stayed calm and in control, always with numbers at the front navigating Yates through until the final metres of the stage.

As the line drew closer, the gap to the leaders reduced with the main reduced bunch finishing just 10 second adrift. Yates heads into tomorrow’s decisive individual time trial stage with a 16 second advantage over Rafal Majka (BORA-hansgrohe) and 39 seconds over Geraint Thomas (Ineos).

Simon Yates – Race Leader “There was nobody dangerous in the break, Astana did a lot of the work and we tried to stay calm. “The team did a really good job, they kept it all under control until the very last climb for me and I only touched the wind with 200metres to go so it was a really good job from them and a perfect day for me. I would always prefer more time going into a time trial, it is not my favourite event. 16 seconds to Rafal (Majka) is not much, it is going to be close and he is obviously going really good. We know (Geraint) Thomas is excellent in the time trials too so the race definitely isn’t over yet. I don’t know if it is going to be enough time, I will just do my best.”

Stage
1. Mathieu van der Poel Alpecin-Fenix 04:19:23
2. Ruben Guerreiro EF Pro Cycling @ 04
3. Matteo Fabbro Bora-Hansgrohe @ 04
4. Wilco Kelderman Team Sunweb @ 09
5. Alex Aranburu Astana Pro Team @ 10
6. Simon Yates Leader jersey Mitchelton-Scott @ 10
7. Michael Woods EF Pro Cycling @ 10
8. Geraint Thomas INEOS Grenadiers @ 10
9. Aleksander Vlasov Youth jersey Astana Pro Team @ 10
10. Rafal Majka Bora-Hansgrohe @ 10

14. James Knox Deceuninck-Quick Step @ 15
15. Tao Geoghegan Hart INEOS Grenadiers @ 15
44. Matthew Holmes Lotto Soudal @ 54
73. Chris Froome INEOS Grenadiers @ 04:08
145. Alex Dowsett Israel Start-Up Nation @ 19:32

Overall
1. Simon Yates Mitchelton-Scott 31:56:02
2. Rafal Majka Bora-Hansgrohe @ 16
3. Geraint Thomas INEOS Grenadiers @ 39
4. Aleksander Vlasov Astana Pro Team @ 49
5. Fausto Masnada Deceuninck-Quick Step @ 57
6. Wilco Kelderman Team Sunweb @ 59
7. Michael Woods EF Pro Cycling @ 01:22
8. James Knox Deceuninck-Quick Step @ 01:26
9. Gianluca Brambilla Trek-Segafredo @ 02:33
10. Jack Haig Mitchelton-Scott @ 02:47

Full Results are Here