Tirreno-Adriatico: Sagan wins stage 6

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Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) won his first race of the season on stage 6 of Tirreno-Adriatico from Rieti to Porto Sant'Elpidio. Gerald Ciolek (MTN – Qhubeka) finished in second with Belgian road champion Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal) in third.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) retained his lead in the overall and heads into the final stage with a 39 second advantage over Bauke Mollema (Trek Factory Racing).

However the rainy stage to Porto Sant'Elpidio belonged to Sagan, who looked visibly relieved after taking his first win of what has been an underwhelming start to the season. The win is a morale-boosting performance with Milan San Remo just under a week away.

The Slovakian national road champion capped off a fine overall performance from his team after they had split the field in the atrocious conditions – eliminating a number of key sprinters from the reckoning, including Mark Cavendish and Luka Mezgec (Team Giant-Alpecin).

The reduced peloton made light work of a break that included Stijn Devolder (Trek Factory Racing), Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar) and Alessandro Vanotti (Astana) and even after Vanotti and Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r-La Mondiale) broke clear inside the final 40 kilometres, Tinkoff-Saxo and Lotto Soudal brought the race back together in the final 5km of racing.

MTN – Qhubeka positioned Ciolek near the front after work from Matthew Goss and Edvald Boasson Hagen, but Sagan was sat behind the German and he was not to be denied his first win of the year. He came past on Ciolek’s left inside the final 150 meters and despite a fast finish from Debusschere and Ciolek managing to remain in contention, Sagan had time to coast over the line in first place for his team’s second win of the calendar year.

How it unfolded

Yesterday’s snow capped finish and the debates over rider safety were only partially washed away by the time the race convened in Rieti for the start of stage 6. When the flag dropped at the start riders were already well accustomed to the rain and little else changed as they headed north and towards the coast.

Huddled together, the peloton, wrapped in layer upon layer of Gortex, barely registered any concern when the non-threatening move of Stijn Devolder (Trek Factory Racing), Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar) and Alessandro Vanotti (Astana), slipped clear inside the opening 20km.

It was only after Tinkoff Saxo upped the race on the climb of Montelparo did the main field lurch into life. The pace from Sagan and Contador’s men was enough to split the peloton with Cavendish and number of other sprinters left trailing. Tinkoff’s initiative also cut the leading trio’s advantage to 1:30, and after Devolder threw in the towel, the rest of the break was quickly caught too.

Vanotti at least had other ideas and the Astana rider rolled clear for a second time and established a 40 second gap on what was left of the bunch

Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r-La Mondiale) made it two riders in the lead group soon after but with 12km to go the Frenchman tore clear of Vanotti. It as all futile, however, with Tinkoff joined by Lotto Soudal on the front of the peloton.

With 5km to go Vuillermoz’s resistance was finally broken and despite Tinkoff rapidly losing numbers ahead of the sprint Sagan was able to latch onto Ciolek’s rear wheel before unleashing an unbeatable sprint.

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