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Tirreno-Adriatico, March 7-13, 2.UWT

Alert - Tirreno ahead!

Route:
This year, the race organizers arranged for a perfectly symetric route design: TTT => flat => hilly/HTF => MTF => hilly/HTF => flat => ITT.

Stage 1: Lido di Camaiore - Lido di Camaiore, 21 km (TTT)
Same route as in the previous years. And the same usual suspects to get a stage win: BMC, Sunweb, Sky...
T01_LidoCamaiore_alt-1024x607.jpg


Stage 2: Camaiore - Follonica, 172 km
Relatively short and flat stage for the sprinters, with the only climb at the very beginning just to distribute the mountain jersey to one of the possible early breakaway contenders.
T02_Follonica_alt-1-1024x585.jpg


Stage 3: Follonica - Trevi, 239 km
Extra long, hilly stage with a spectacular murito at the very (very) end.
T03_Trevi_alt-1-1024x608.jpg


The final circuit in Trevi (to be ridden twice) is designed in the way that the finish line is just at the top of a 1,5-kilometer long climb, with the last 500m being the steepest. In addition, the road is very narrow.
T03_Trevi_dettaglio-Salita_web.jpg


Stage 4: Foligno - Sarnano Sassotetto, 213 km
As usual, the only MTF is in the very middle of the race.
T04_SassoTetto_alt-1024x630.jpg


The final climb of the day:
T04_S04_Sassotetto_web-1.jpg


But what is potentially more interesting, it is the profile of the stage before the final climb starts. From the kilometer 60 onwards, it seems to be a "not-a-single-kilometer-flat" terrain, extremely rolling, with a sequence of short and steep climbs and downhills.
T04_S01_SanGinesio_web.jpg

T04_S02_Gualdo_web.jpg

T04_S03_PennaSG_web.jpg


Stage 5: Castelraimondo - Filottrano, 178 km
Another one hilly stage finishing in the home town of Michele Scarponi.
T05_Filottrano_alt-1024x591.jpg


Like in case of stage 2, this one also should be decided on the final laps in Filottrano providing for the major difficulty of the day - Muro di Fillotrano (passed three times). However, this time the design of the final kilometers is different: from the top of the murito, there are almost 3 kilometers left (a descent, then a 1,5-kilometer long uphill drag to the finish line, with some steeper sections near to the end.
T05_Filottrano_MuroFilottrano_web.jpg


Stage 6: Numana - Fano, 153 km
Short stage beginning with more than 100 kilometers of a rolling hilly terrain, but with a more than 30-kilometer long flat section at the end. Sprinter teams should have enough time to catch the breakaway and to organize their trains. GC guys should wait for the final battle against the clock on the next day.
T06_Fano_alt-1024x589.jpg


Stage 7: San Benedetto del Tronto - San Benedetto del Tronto, 10 km (ITT)
Exactly the same route as over few last years. One of pure specialists should take this one.
T07_SanBenedetto_alt-1024x569.jpg


Startlist:
Full startlist available here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tirreno-adriatico/2018/startlist

Teams and notable riders:
Ag2R (Bardet, Geniez)
Astana (Lopez, Lutsenko)
Bahrain (Nibali, Pozzovivo, Colbrelli)
BMC (GvA, Caruso, Dennis)
Bora (P.Sagan, Majka, Formolo)
Dimension Data (Cavendish, Meintjes, Boasson Hagen)
EF (Uran, Modolo, Vanmarcke)
Groupama-FdJ
Gazprom
Israel Cycling (Hermans, Sbaragli)
Katusha (Spilak, Kittel, Martin)
LottoNL-Jumbo (Bennett, Roglic, van Poppel)
Lotto-Soudal (Benoot, Marczyński)
Mitchelton (A.Yates, Ewan)
Movistar (Landa, Amador)
Nippo (Cunego, Canola)
Quickstep (Gaviria, Jungels, Gilbert, Stybar)
Sky (Froome, Thomas, Kwiatkowski, Moscon)
Sunweb (Dumoulin, Kelderman)
Trek
UAE (Aru, Ulissi)
Wilier (Pozzato, Mareczko)
 
Quite an interesting route, the short, sharp climb to Trevi is brutal but they should have put the MTF the day after and left stage 4 as a 180(ish)km stage, with the finish at the end of that sequence of hills.

I think Froome will follow his plan of last year, if he's going to be competitive in 2 GT's his build up will be low-key again, Thomas has a good chance.

Expecting a good show from Bardet, Landa and Nibali, although they will obviously be inconvenienced by at least one of the TTT and ITT.

Not sure if Dumoulin aims to arrive here in good shape and challenge?
 
Re:

Pricey_sky said:
Quite an interesting route, the short, sharp climb to Trevi is brutal but they should have put the MTF the day after and left stage 4 as a 180(ish)km stage, with the finish at the end of that sequence of hills.

I think Froome will follow his plan of last year, if he's going to be competitive in 2 GT's his build up will be low-key again, Thomas has a good chance.

Expecting a good show from Bardet, Landa and Nibali, although they will obviously be inconvenienced by at least one of the TTT and ITT.

Not sure if Dumoulin aims to arrive here in good shape and challenge?
Dumoulin will start as leader, with Kelderman in a co-leader kinda role.
However I think he's not in the same shape as last year in this period and don't expect him to do well.
 

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