Adam Yates Loses Tirreno-Adriatco By Just One Second
Slovenia's Primoz Roglic won the Tirreno-Adriatico cycling race on Tuesday finishing just one-second ahead of Britain's Adam Yates after the seventh and final stage
Roglic, 29, of Team Jumbo-Visma, had been trailing 25 seconds behind the Mitchelton-Scott rider Yates in the overall standings going into the final 10km time-trial.
"It's unbelievably close," said Roglic, who will be team leader at the Giro d'Italia for the first time.
"I felt stronger on the way back. Before the start I was confident that I'd win but I only could control myself. I'm glad it ended well."
Yates held the overall lead throughout the race after Mitchelton-Scott won the opening day team time-trial but said after the major climb stage this weekend that his 25sec lead would unlikely be enough to clinch the overall win due to Roglic being faster against the clock.
But then Yates, who will lead his team at the Tour de France, came within a hair's-breadth of the win that had viewers craning their necks at the line.
“It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but we did the best we could,” Yates said. “This time it wasn’t good enough but there are plenty more races in the season. I’ve showed my condition is good.”
He held the blue leader’s jersey through the lower mountains of Le Marche and heading into the final time trial. However, he watched Roglic celebrate on the final podium in San Benedetto del Tronto.
“We were in the lead for pretty much the whole race,” Yates added. “We won the stage one team time trial and went close to two stage wins, why shouldn’t we be happy?"
Dane Jakob Fuglsang of Astana was third overall 30sec adrift of the winner after the run down the flat Adriatic seafront at San Benedetto del Tronto.
European time-trial champion Victor Campenaerts of Belgium, riding for Lotto, clocked the fastest time of 11min 23sec early in the day to win the seventh stage just 0.03sec ahead of Italian Alberto Bettiol (EF Education First).
"I rode a perfect time-trial," said Campenaerts, "I knew I had to be strong on the way back where the headwind was really strong."
"This victory, my first in the World Tour, is important also for my confidence in beating the world hour record next month."
Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb finished seventh on the day, the Dutch rider moving up to fourth overall at 1min 25sec ahead of French pair Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who were just over 2min 30sec adrift in the general classification.
Former ski jumper Roglic follows his victory in the UAE Tour in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month.
2019 Tirreno-Adriatico Final General Classification
1 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 25:28:00
2 Adam Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott 00:00:01
3 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team 00:00:30
4 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 00:01:25
5 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 00:02:32
6 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Deceuninck-QuickStep 00:02:34
7 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky 00:02:42
8 Simon Clarke (Aus) EF Education First 00:03:01
9 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb 00:03:12
10 Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates 00:03:18