2018 Tirreno-Adriatico Preview

Tirreno-Adriatico, known as The Race of the Two Seas has become an important event as riders use the opportunity to find form ahead of Milan-San Remo in mid-March.

The seven-stage event is bookended by time trials; the team event over 21.5kms opens the race and the final individual stage is a fast 10km effort won by Rohan Dennis in 2017.

Stage two, over 172km from Montemagno to Follinica, is an opportunity for the sprinters; .

After a tough stage three the uphill finish at Sarnano Sassotetto lies in wait in the 4th. A final climb of 1335m on a day of 219km of racing and could ultimately decide who wins the overall GC.

Stage 5 is known as the “Muri” (Wall); a series of short, steep climbs and within 5kms of the finish the the Muro di Filottrano (up to 15%) is memorable and will be emotional too as the race visits the home of Michele Scarponi who tragically died last year.

The penultimate stage sees the sprinters come back into the mix over 153km with a fast, flat finish in Fano.

The race is completed with an individual time trial in the beautiful San Benedetto del Tronto on the Adriatic.

Team Dimension Data

Mark Cavendish returns to racing with Team Dimension Data following his crash in Abu Dhabi that saw him suffer a concussion and spend time off the bike on medical advice.

The African team features a strong supporting cast for the Manxman in the likes of Bernhard Eisel, Mark Renshaw, Julien Vermote and Scott Thwaites. Another man whose season is slowly building after injury is Edvald Boasson Hagen, and his pedigree makes him a major danger to his rivals. He finished 30th in this race last year.

Vermote has started the year strongly featuring at the ‘opening weekend’ in his native Belgium narrowly missing out on a victory at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne where he was reeled in by the bunch just under 100m from the finish line.

The line-up is completed by Louis Meintjes who continues to build into his season.

“I’m looking forward to getting back together with Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka at Tirreno-Adriatico,” said Mark Cavendish. “Unfortunately my form isn’t going to be what I’d hoped after my week off the bike following my concussion but we go with intentions of building that form back up, ready for the Classics. There are two sprint opportunities for myself and it’ll be nice to race with my new teammate Louis Meintjes and see what we can do with him in the mountain days in the overall.”

Lotto Soudal

Lotto Soudal will send Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts, Jens Debusschere, Jens Keukeleire, Nikolas Maes, Tomasz Marczyński and Tosh Van der Sande to Italy for the race.

“The course of Tirreno-Adriatico is very varied,” says Lotto Soudal sports director Bart Leysen. “The race starts with a team time trial and ends with an individual race against the clock. There is one real sprint stage on Thursday and on Monday fast men that survive the climbs could sprint for victory. Climbers and punchers also find courses that suit them and also escapees stand a chance.”

“You see that diversity on the start list too. There are GC riders such as Dumoulin, Froome and Nibali, but also top sprinters like Ewan, Gaviria and Kittel. World champion Peter Sagan will also stand at the start. Very strong riders, but also we have a team that can play along in different kinds of stages.”

“We want to do well in the team time trial because a good start always gives a boost. And with riders like Benoot, Campenaerts, Keukeleire and Marczyński we have a strong team for it too. Depending on the result, we will see if this gives us opportunities on GC. On Thursday Jens Debusschere will do the sprint for us. He could possibly sprint again on Monday and otherwise Jens Keukeleire will be our man that day.”

“The weather will be an important factor. According to the weather forecast it will be very bad. In the past the weather has often had an influence on the stages and GC. As a consequence surprising names turned up on top ten of GC. It will be an interesting, but hard week.”

Gaz Prom – RusVelo

The most experienced rider of Gazprom — RusVelo Sergey Firsanov shared his expectations before the upcoming start: “Our line-up consists of three young newcomers for whom it will be definitely the central race of the season and a chance to justify themselves. Personally, I am setting up for the mountainous stage, on the other days I will be assisting my teammates. Of course, it is a great honor for our team to get the invitation to such a big race and we will do everything’s possible to justify it”.

Line-up for Tirreno-Adriatico: Igor Boev, Nikolay Cherkasov, Alexander Foliforov, Sergey Firsanov, Artem Nych, Stepan Kurianov, Alexander Vlasov.

EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale

Rigoberto Uran will lead a well-rounded EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale squad into the 53rd edition of Tirreno-Adriatico, starting Wednesday, with eyes on the general classification.

Joining Uran are Simon Clarke, Sacha Modolo, Dani Moreno, Taylor Phinney, Tom Van Asbroeck and Sep Vanmarcke.

“The primary hope of Tirreno is to be competitive in the general classification with Rigoberto Uran. And a rider like Sacha Modolo is going to be looking at this as his final preparation for Milano-Sanremo,” said team boss Jonathan Vaughters. “We’ve also got a majority of our classics team getting ready.”

Road captain Simon Clarke sees an interesting race setting up and one of the season’s first major tests.

“Tirreno is always interesting because it’s the first big test in Europe, particularly for the GC riders — that and Paris-Nice. So these races are always very good indicators of how good guys are going to be leading into the year,” Clarke said. “It’s a nice Tirreno this year, because there’s the standard team time trial to start with, and then we’ve got stage one and the second-to-last stage, which are nice sprint stages. And having Modolo here and on the team creates a nice new opportunity for us on the flat stages. Then we’ve got two undulating stages, stage three and stage five with nice little finishes that I think suit myself and Sep. Hopefully between the two of us we can be competitive on those stages while supporting Rigo.”

Bahrain – Merida

For Bahrain-Merida Sport Director Alberto Volpi, the team is ready: “This year’s edition is full of stars including Chris Froome and Tom Dumoulin. Among them, also our Vincenzo who together with Domenico will be our two leaders. Sonny, however, will have the task of aiming for the stages for sprinters. Overall, we are a good team that can always fight for victory. The unknown will be the weather that provides difficult conditions at least in the first days”.

Vincenzo Nibali: “I arrive at this “Tirreno” in good condition and I am curious to see how far I am in my preparation. At the beginning of the season I was undecided whether to participate or not but then I decided to come also because the 5th stage arrives at Filottrano, the small town of my great friend Michele Scarponi. I would never miss this”.

Domenico Pozzovivo “It’s a race that I’ve always liked so much that this year will be my 11th edition. After the training camp at Teide and the Abu Dhabi Tour, I trained well in Southern Italy and here I will go for the General Classification”.

Sonny Colbrelli: “There are at least a couple of stages that fit my characteristics and I’ll try to make full loot. I come from an unlucky Strade Bianche and I want to make it up! This “Tirreno” will also help me to complete my preparation for Milano-Sanremo and for the next races in Belgium”.

Team Bahrain Merida’s line-up for Tirreno-Adriatico: Vincenzo Nibali, Domenico Pozzovivo, Sonny Colbrelli, Franco Pellizotti, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Kristijan Koren and Ramunas Navardauskas.

Team Sunweb

Chad Haga will replace an injured Michael Matthews at the race, making the final lineup Søren Kragh Andersen, Nikias Arndt, Tom Dumoulin, Simon Geschke, Lennard Kämna, Haga & Wilco Kelderman.

Team Sunweb coach Marc Reef (NED) says: “Our main objective is to go for a GC result with Tom, alongside Wilco who has already showed his strong shape in Abu Dhabi with a second place overall. The race opens with a TTT, and we have a strong team here who will aim to put Tom immediately in a good position in the overall. Stages two and six are days for the sprinters where our main goal will be to get Tom home safe; we have Lennard, Nikias and Søren who will be key helpers on these days. The third stage has a finish on a steep, explosive climb; there we will first see which riders will battle out the GC this year. The queen stage on day four is another important day for the GC with the finish at the top of a 13 kilometre climb after a very tough and long day in the saddle. The fifth stage is something for the explosive classic riders and we finish it traditionally off with an ITT in San Benedetto del Tronto.”

UAE Team Emirates

UAE Team Emirates will race the 2018 Tirreno-Adriatico with two leaders for the overall classification.

“We are going to Tirreno-Adriatico with an aim in the general classification,” said Sports Director Mario Scirea. “We can aim for the overall both with Fabio Aru and Diego Ulissi, who showed at the start of this season to be going strong.

“It will be key to race a good team time trial, above all against those teams that are aiming for an overall victory. We can count on Ganna and Consonni, who just came from the track worlds, to help. And also Marcato and Ulissi, who rode a good time trial in the Abu Dhabi Tour.”

Fabio Aru will be racing his second event of the season after starting in the Abu Dhabi Tour. “Tirreno-Adriatico is for sure one of my season goals,” explained Aru. “I only have the Abu Dhabi Tour in my legs so far, but for sure that test that I did in the Emirates helped in understanding what I need to work on in the period ahead of Tirreno-Adriatico. This will be a complete race for us, where also the time trial is fundamental. We are going in motivated and setup to race well.”

Roster: Fabio Aru, Simone Consonni, Valerio Conti, Filippo Ganna, Marco Marcato, Jan Polanc, Diego Ulissi.

BMC Racing Team

BMC Racing Team will line up at Tirreno-Adriatico with a strong team with multiple objectives, after Richie Porte was ruled out of racing due to illness.

“Richie Porte developed an upper respiratory infection after Volta ao Algarve which forced him to miss the best part of a week’s training. Given Tirreno-Adriatico was one of Richie’s goal races this season, it did not make sense to line up when his preparation was far from ideal.” BMC Racing Team Chief Medical Officer Dr. Max Testa explained

Sports Director Maximilian Sciandri said BMC Racing Team will be targeting both stage wins and the General Classification at the seven-day UCI WorldTour stage race: “We are going to Tirreno-Adriatico with various ambitions, and it all starts with defending our team time trial victory from 2016 and 2017. There are then a couple of stages that should suit Greg Van Avermaet, who we know is in good shape and is always motivated to do well. Looking at the General Classification, Damiano Caruso will take on a leadership role, and we are confident that he can step up and show the form we know he has. We will also see what Rohan Dennis can do, and I’m sure he will be motivated for the final time trial again,” Sciandri explained.

Caruso is looking to challenge himself on home soil: “It is always nice to race Tirreno-Adriatico, and I always like racing in Italy. This year will be a hard race because there are a lot of really hard days including one stage with almost 5000 meters of elevation. We have a strong team lining up with different goals. We start with the TTT which is really important for us and then we also have Greg Van Avermaet who can go for a few stages. A new scenario has opened up for me at this year’s race, and hopefully, I can try to fight for the GC but with a day by day philosophy and with no pressure. There are many champions in this race, so it is very difficult to get a result but I have nothing to lose, and so I will give it a try,” Caruso said.

Dennis, who finished second in 2017, has his sights set on the final individual time trial: “I’m looking forward to going back to Tirreno-Adriatico next week. One main goal of the team will be to win the opening team time trial again, and we are motivated to do that. For me, the individual time trial will, of course, be another target and I hope to repeat my success from last year. In between the two, we will see what happens,” Dennis added.

Roster: Alberto Bettiol, Patrick Bevin, Damiano Caruso, Rohan Dennis, Stefan Küng, Michael Schär, Greg Van Avermaet