Tirreno-Adriatico 2019: Stage 7

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January 1 - March 19, San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, Road - WorldTour

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Welcome to live coverage of the final stage time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico

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Hello and welcome to coverage of the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico. As is traditional, the race will conclude with an individual time trial around Sen Benedetto del Tronto. The first few riders are out on course already and we'll have some finishing times very soon. 

There will be two contests today, the one for the stage win and then the one for the overall victory. We could see them intertwine with Primoz Roglic a strong time triallist, though there are plenty of strong TT riders who are not in the running for the overall title. 

Of course, Tom Dumoulin is another rider high up in the overall classification that could take home the stage win today. However, at 1:55 back he is well out of contention for the overall win. He is 1:20 behind Fuglsang for the final spot on the podium. It's a long shot, but if Fuglsang has a particularly bad day on the bike then he could move up to third. 

At the moment, Tom Bohli has the fastest time of 11:43. Victor Campenaerts looks set to beat that though. 

European time trial champion, Campenaerts smashes Bohli's time by 20 seconds, stopping the clock at 11:23. 

Miles Scotson has just crossed the line for provisional third place. He was just one second short of Bohli's time. 

Jos van Emden is out on course and looks to be going well. He has just passed his minute-man with relative ease. 

Other strong time triallists out on course at the moment are Chad Haga and Maciej Bodnar. 

Michael Hepburn rolls off the start ramp, resplendent with his mustache. He was the first wearer of the leader's jersey after Mitchelton-Scott win the opening team time trial. They nearly had a mishap with a dog, let's hope everyone has a much smoother run this time. 

Back at the finish and Jos van Emden crosses the line with a time of 11:27. That is just four seconds off the fastest time of Campenaerts.

Haga comes home in provisional seventh place. 

Bodnar slots into fifth with his time of 11:50.

Here are the current top-5 fastest times

World champion Rohan Dennis has just started his effort. It will be interesting to see how he goes. He is obviously a serious contender for today and will be looking for his first win in the rainbow bands. 

Meanwhile, a strong ride from Michael Hepburn, but it's not enough to knock Campenaerts off the top spot. He is 11 seconds down on the Belgian and slots into third place. 

They're coming in thick and fast at the moment. Rising Italian star Filippo Ganna comes in to set the fourth fastest time, 12 seconds down on Campenaerts. 

Here is your updated top 5 after that little flurry. 

A the moment, the riders are going at one-minute intervals. Once we get to the top 15 that will increase to two minutes. vincenzo Nibali will be the first member of the top 15 to go down the start ramp at 15:35 local time. 

Rohan Dennis finishes his run and he is in third place at nine seconds slower than Victor Campenaerts. No win in the rainbow jersey for the Australian today. 

Before we get too far into this time trial, let's take a step back and look at the overall standings as they are at the moment. The overall title is up for grabs with Primoz Roglic just 25 seconds behind Adam Yates. We've seen some sizeable gaps between the top time triallists, so 25 seconds is an achievable margin for Roglic. There is also plenty of room for moving up and down within the top 10. 

Here is Rohan Dennis during his effort a short while ago. 

Stephen Cummings coming towards the finish. He's inside the final kilometre but it doesn't look like he's going to trouble Campenaert's time. 

Cummings stops the clock at 11:39. A solid time for him, but he might have been hoping for a bit more. Cummings had a difficult season in 2018 and will be looking to get things back on track this year. 

Campenaerts could enjoy quite some time in the hotseat as things stand. There are some good time triallists still to come so victory is not certain. Stefan Kung will be heading out shortly, and we still have Luke Durbridge, Yves Lampaert, Joey Rosskopf, Jonathan Castroviejo, Tom Dumoulin and Primoz Roglic still to come. 

An impressive ride from Sebastian Langeveld. He's just six seconds shy of Campenaerts and seems to be in strong form ahead of the main bulk of the Classics in the coming weeks. 

Stefan Kung is well into his ride. No intermediate time for him a the moment but he will be at the finish line in a little under two minutes. Can he move Campenaerts off the top step?

The time rolls on and Campenaerts holds onto his lead. Kung can only managed the eighth quickest time at 19 seconds slower than Campenaerts. 

Yves Lampaert is out on course and he is going well. He is just one second short of the best time at the intermediate, which was set by Rohan Dennis. 

Lampaert posts the fourth fastest time. Like Dennis, he lost some time over the second part of the course. Though, he gained three seconds on the Australian. 

Luke Durbridge started his ride a few moments ago. He is another threat for the stage win today. This is how it looks at the top at the moment. 

News from our reporter on the ground, Stephen Farrand, is that there is a gusting tailwind on the way out and a headwind for the riders on the way back. That could explain the differences in times.  

Stephen Farrand also reports that Luke Durbridge, who is midway through his ride, is using a 58 big ring and Adam Yates is expected to use the same. Meanwhile, Dennis used a 56. 

Durbridge is going extremely well at the moment and is about to enter the final one kilometre. It's going to be close for the Australian, I think. 

Durbridge gives it everything he has but it isn't enough to beat Campenaerts' time. He is 15 seconds slower than the Belgian on the line. 

A good time from Mads Pedersen, however. He goes into fifth place and is a second quicker than Rohan Dennis. 

I think Dennis will be regretting his choice of gearing today. 

Joey Rosskopf starts his ride. Here he outside his team bus earlier on. 

Now we have Jonathan Castroviejo heading out on course. Castroviejo was less than a second off the time of Campenaerts at the European championships last year. He has been riding very well so far this season so it will be interesting to see what he can do. Unlike Campenaerts, he has been doing team duties this week to look after team leader Wout Poels. 

Away from Tirreno-Adriatico but still in Italy, and it looks like Mark Cavendish will be missing from the start line at Milan-San Remo this weekend. Cavendish rode Paris-Nice but abandoned during stage 2. Read the full story here. 

Castroviejo is 12 seconds down at the intermediate check. That is a lot of time for the Spaniard to make up in the second half of this course. 

TIm Wellens is out of the gates. He's going sans visor for is ride. 

Away from the race again and Team Sky have announced that they will be Team Ineos next season. We'll have more on that very soon. 

Vincenzo Nibali is out on course now. He's had a pretty quiet Tirreno-Adriatico and said over the weekend that he was a bit behind where he would like to be at this point in the season but he's still happy with how things are progressing. 

A report coming in from the CCC Team is that Joey Rosskopf crashed out on course. No news about his condition at the moment but let's hope that he's ok. 

It was not a good time for Castroviejo at all. He finished 32 seconds down in the end. 

Another crash out on course with Toms Skujins hitting the deck. He doesn't seem too badly hurt and he's back on his bike as quick as he can manage. 

As promised, here is the news on Team Sky becoming Team Ineos as of May 1. They will launch the new team at the Tour de Yorkshire. 

A solid effort from Nibali, who finishes 31 seconds back. He'll be happy to have another week of racing under his belt and he heads to Milan-San Remo this weekend to defend his title. 

Primoz Roglic is getting ready for his ride. He will start in just over 10 minutes. 

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of today's stage, here is a reminder of the top 10 in the general classification. 

Fifth placed overall, Julian Alaphilippe gets going. He took a surprise win in yesterday's bunch finish after already taking victory on stage 2. He's in fine form for Milan-San Remo at the weekend. 

Rui Costa is the first member of the top 10 to finish. He puts in a time of 11:53. 

Jakob Fuglsang starts. What a start to the season he's had with the Ruta del Sol and that stage win over the weekend. It was a gutsy ride to hold of Adam Yates behind him. 

Sam Oomen crosses the line with a time of 12:15, which is 52 seconds down. That means that Simon Clarke will overtake him in the overall standings. Clarke lost just 36 seconds and started the day just five seconds behind Oomen in the standings. 

Meanwhile, Adam Yates rolls down the ramp and we have all the riders either finished or out on course. 

Adam's brother Simon pulled out a stonker of a ride to win the Paris-Nice time trial. This is a very different course for Adam but he's going to have to pull out a mighty effort to keep Primoz Roglic at bay in the overall classification. 

Tom Dumoulin is into the final kilometre. I don't think that he's done enough to take the stage win, but we shall see. 

Dumoulin grits his teeth as he tries to eek out every bit of power that he has but it's not enough. He's seventh fastest with a time of 11:31. 

Yates is going pretty well at the moment. He was only seven seconds slower than Roglic at the intermediate.

Roglic is giving no quarter as he cuts as close to the barriers as he dares. 

Fuglsang finishes with a time of 11:56. He's slower than Dumoulin but he's done enough to hold onto his third place. 

We wait now for Roglic to finish. What can he do?

Roglic is 11th fastest with a time of 11:36. 

Yates is wrestling with the bike now and he's giving it everything that he has. 

This is going to be very close. 

Oh my goodness, that was extremely close. We'll have to see the official times but Roglic could have it by the smallest margin. 

Roglic wins the overall classification by a single second!

Wow, that was some finale. Yates really struggled in the final kilometres and just didn't have enough to maintain his pace. 

Meanwhile, Victory Campenaerts takes the stage victory by three seconds over Alberto Bettiol. 

You have to feel for Yates, he did everything right during the race only to be denied by a single second. 

Some words from the day's winner Victor Campenaerts - or maybe we should call him Victory Campenaerts (I'll get my coat).

Here is Roglic during his ride. 

And some words from the overall winner. He had to dig very deep for that. 

This is the final general classification. There wasn't too much movement in the top 10, but there was where it counted - at the top. 

Here you have today's stage winner, Victor Campenaerts. He is targeting the Hour Record this year and this win will be a big boost for him. 

Meanwhile, Roglic shows off his best Telemark landing. Once a ski jumper always a ski jumper. 

What you can't quite see in that photo is that they had prepared the blue jersey for Adam Yates being the winner and it still had the Mitchelton-Scott branding on it. Fortunately, Jakob Fuglsang noticed and told the podium hostess. In the end, Roglic wore a blue jersey with no branding on it. 

Here is what Adam Yates had to say after the finish. He didn't seem too disappointed but was adamant that he would be back again to take the overall title. 

For a full recap of today's action along with results and photos then head over here. 

Primoz Roglic gets his hands on one of the best trophies in cycling. 

That is all from our coverage of Tirreno-Adriatico. We will be back with more live coverage of racing this weekend with Milan-San Remo. See you then. 

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