Quintana seals Tirreno-Adriatico victory

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Nairo Quintana (Movistar) won Tirreno-Adriatico for the second time in three years on Tuesday after he safely negotiated the short final time trial in San Benedetto del Tronto, which was won by Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing).

Dennis scorched around the 10.1-kilometre course at an average speed of 53kph to pip early pace-setter Jos van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo) by three seconds and move ahead of Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) into second place overall.

Quintana, the last rider off, took no risks on the seafront course, coming home 45th on the stage, some 41 seconds down on Dennis, enough to secure the overall title, 25 seconds clear of the Australian. Pinot held off the challenge of Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) to finish third overall, 36 seconds down on Quintana.

As the wind picked up in the latter part of the afternoon, it looked as though van Emden's early time would withstand the challenge of the late starters, particularly when time triallists of the calibre of Jonathan Castroviejo (Movistar) and Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) failed to trouble his mark.

When van Emden's teammate Roglic, the fourth last rider down the start ramp, faded in the final headwind stretch to come home 11 seconds down, the Dutchman looked a likely stage winner. Dennis had other plans, knocking van Emden out of the hot seat shortly afterwards.

"It wasn't easy," Dennis said. "Up to halfway I was just trying to think, ‘Stick to one plan for the first half, then lift it'. You try to break up little parts of it, when you can get a rest and when you can't. But it was a tough course out there with the headwind."

As in 2015, Quintana's overall win was forged on Monte Terminillo, where he soloed to victory on Saturday afternoon, and the Colombian defended his blue jersey with assurance thereafter. Already the winner of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana this season, Quintana's next major rendezvous will be on Italian roads, when he returns to the Giro d'Italia for the first time since he claimed the overall title in 2014.

"Tirreno-Adriatico is a race I like very much. I'm happy to win it for the second time, and repay my team for the efforts they did for me," Quintana said. "It was a fast time trial today. I was never worried because the seconds were in my advantage before the start."

Quintana began the day 50 seconds clear of Pinot in the overall standings and, barring mishap, the only real suspense lay in discovering who would stand on the podium alongside him in San Benedetto del Tronto. Pinot had just 16 seconds in hand on Dennis coming into the stage, and despite his status as French time trial champion, the Australian's form this week made him a marginal favourite to nudge his way into second place overall, and so it proved.

Dennis has bookended his Tirreno-Adriatico with time trial wins, having led BMC to victory in the team time trial on the opening day, though he will perhaps draw greater satisfaction from the way he limited his losses on the Terminillo on Saturday to stay in the hunt for the final podium.

"It was great for BMC to start off with the stage win and to have the jersey for three days, and I could finally show the team the work they did was worth it by being able to take second on GC and another stage win," Dennis said. "It's been a great week for BMC."

Sagan avoids dog

The early entertainment on the final day of Tirreno-Adriatico came not just from Jos van Emden's rapid time – and Michael Hepburn's fractionally slower effort that bagged him third place on the stage – but also from world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), who was forced to take evasive action when a pedestrian walking a dog crossed his path at the last moment.

Sagan managed to swing onto the pavement to avoid crashing before swooping back onto the course, and he was able to make light of the near-collision as he waited to mount the podium as winner of the points classification.

"It was lucky it was not an incident. It's funny. I didn't brake because I was in my position on the time trial, I saw her really late, so there was nowhere to go except off the road," said Sagan, who admitted that the short time trial had otherwise amounted to a bout of active recovery ahead of Milan-San Remo on Saturday.

"Today was relaxing, it was a rest day for me. I'm happy nothing happened today and I'm looking forward to Saturday."

Sagan was not alone in turning his thoughts to Milan-San Remo even before Tirreno-Adriatico had come to a close. Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) was among the non-starters on Tuesday afternoon, while riders like Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) adopted a similar attitude to Sagan.

Elsewhere, Geraint Thomas (Sky) produced a strong effort to place 8th on the stage, 16 seconds down on Dennis, which was enough to lift him above Tom Dumoulin and into 5th place overall – though after placing just 58 seconds down on Quintana, the Welshman will come away ruing his Sky team's calamitous showing in the opening team time trial.

Fellow Giro contenders Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and Tejay van Garderen (BMC) produced low-key time trial performances, coming home 55 and 36 seconds down, respectively. Other men targeting the corsa rosa, like Dennis, Pinot and Dumoulin, can draw greater satisfaction from their showings, though no one could quite top Quintana on the Terminillo.

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