Roglic wins Tirreno-Adriatico by a single second

Jumbo-Visma’s Slovenian ace Primoz Roglic stole the Tirreno-Adriatico’s trident trophy from Adam Yates in the final stage time trial, making up 25-seconds to win by a single second in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy. Roglic has now won two of the four 2019 WorldTour stage races. Victor Campenaerts (Belgium/Lotto-Soudal) won the chrono.

??#TirrenoAdriatico
It's @rogla third win of the season, the 8th for @JumboVismaRoad ! #samenwinnen @TirrenAdriatico pic.twitter.com/WxL5NqSg4a

— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) March 19, 2019

The Course

Tuesday’s chrono was almost of a prologue length: 10-km. Could anyone make up much time on such a short route?

San Benedetto del Tronto, the only town to have featured at all 54 editions of #TirrenoAdriatico, is again host of the last stage, a flat and non-technical 10km-long individual time trial. pic.twitter.com/1IMjW0gUug

— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) March 19, 2019

Yates led Roglic by 25-seconds and Sunday’s stage winner Jakob Fuglsang was 35-seconds in arrears.

Early Riders

Lone Canadian entrant Alex Cataford was the fourth rider to leave the start house. He posted 13:05.

?? @ACataford ?#TirrenoAdriatico @NamedSport pic.twitter.com/oQ2wAbUgqn

— Tirreno Adriatico (@TirrenAdriatico) March 19, 2019

Victor Campenaerts was an early occupier of the hot seat with 11:23. A few riders including world champion Rohan Dennis (Australia/Bahrain-Merida) set faster intermediate times, but couldn’t nudge Campenaerts off the top.

The GC Fight

At the 4-km mark’s intermediate clock, Roglic only had a 10-second gap. The Slovenian set the 11th fastest time, 11:36. Yates had to finish in 12:01 or faster. It’s what the edge of your seat was made for.

For Yates the finish line was agonizingly far, and he could not hang on to the blue jersey he had worn since Stage 2. Roglic took the UAE Tour in late February. He won three consecutive stage races last year, including WorldTour contests Itzulia Basque Country and Tour de Romandie.

Campenaerts hung onto his lead to take the sixth career win, all of them chronos.
Weirdly, the organizers at first only had a blue jersey made up for Yates. Roglic refused to put it on.

https://twitter.com/mrconde/status/1108029549625905154

Next up for Roglic is the Tour de Romandie at the end of April as he builds towards the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France.

2019 Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 7
1) Victor Campenaerts (Belgium/Lotto-Soudal) 11:23
2) Alberto Bettiol (Italy/EF Education First) +0:03
3) Jos van Emden (The Netherlands/Jumbo-Visma) +0:04
130) Alexander Cataford (Canada/Israel Cycling Academy) +1:42

2019 Tirreno-Adriatico Final GC
1) Primoz Roglic (Slovenia/Jumbo Visma) 25:28:00
2) Adam Yates (Great Britain/Mitchelton-Scott) +0:01
3) Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark/Astana) +0:30
4) Tom Dumoulin (The Netherlands/Sunweb) +1:25
5) Thibaut Pinot (France/Groupama-FDJ) +2:32
138) Alexander Cataford (Canada/Israel Cycling Academy) +1:14:11