Kevin Vermaerke sprinted to ninth place on what proved to be a testing finish to the third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, the team’s second of the week after Casper van Uden’s fifth place finish yesterday. How exactly the stage would play out was left quite open today given the up and down profile of the long 225 kilometre stage to Gualdo Tadino. The day’s break formed early but was a long solo escape for one rider, Zoccarato, which ended with just over 20 kilometres to race. From here the pace wound up and the long uphill drag to the line proved too much for many of yesterday’s sprinters.
Kevin commented after the finish: “Today was the longest stage of the race and a pretty hard one with the weather, cold and wet for most of the day – a hard one to stay focused mentally. But the team rallied well to keep each other motivated. The plan was for Casper and I to both be protected coming into the kicker with 25 kilometres to go. Casper and I made it over and the guys then put us into the front coming into the bottom of the last climb. He was still there with five kilometres to go but struggled on the final kick up.
“From there we switched to go for me for a result. Chris did a good job to position Romain and I into the last few kilometres. Unfortunately I was a little boxed in and was unable to follow Romain. It was my mistake not to follow him and I think if we’d made a move there we’d have been a few positions further forward in the last few hundred metres where the difference was made. But we’re lucky we avoided the crash ad the team showed a really strong race today. The legs are good too so we’re motivated for the stages to come.”