The final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on Sunday may have ended up delivering the expected sprint but it was far from straightforward for the likes of Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) to get to the point where they could vie for victory. The climbs may have came early, but it turned out there was also another lofty challenge to overcome – Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) on the front and intent on putting in a big effort.
The uphill kicked in at less than 30km into the day of racing on the 143km stage 7with two climbs in quick succession and while Alpecin-Premier Tech riders were swapping through to keep up the pace on the initial ascent and early on the second it was when Van der Poel took a position at the front at about 97km to go that the the field really began to splinter.
Then he stayed there for pretty much the entirety of the next 30km – in a move viewed as an in race Milan-San Remo training effort – making it far from an easy task for the sprinters to reconnect, even though it was essentially just one rider that did the lions share of the work to both create the split and keep the chase at bay well into the flat finishing circuits.
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Welsford, however, was among those who managed to avoid the crash – just.
For Welsford it ended with a WorldTour stage podium finish– his fourth of the season so far – though of course another spot up the results tally was what he was really after.
