Jonas Vingegaard stamped his authority over WorldTour stage race Tirreno-Adriatico on Friday, winning from a 29-km attack on the toughest mountain of the race so far. He plucked the race lead from sprinter Jonathan Milan, who snagged the blue jersey on Thursday. Vingegaard now leads Stage 1 victor Juan Ayuso by 54 seconds with two stages remaining.
The Course
There were a lot of lumps on Friday’s parcours, but only two climbs were categorized. San Giacomo, 11.9 km of 6.2 percent, was an HC-rated ascent peaking with 24 km to go.
There isn’t a meter of flat on the menu today for the short but hard #TirrenoAdriatico stage 5. pic.twitter.com/ugAMpLofNr
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) March 8, 2024
Ten fugitives including Filippo Ganna got loose early in the day but the pace of the Visma-Lease a Bike-led peloton sopped it up on the lower slopes of San Giacomo. With 5.3 km to climb, Vingegaard attacked and peaked with 34 seconds over Jai Hindley and nearly a minute over UAE-Emirates duo Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro, Ivan Sosa, Ben O’Connor and his own teammate Cian Uijtdebroeks.
On the long descent both Sosa and O’Connor went down. The last 9 kilometers made for a long uphill drag, and the chase group had made no inroads on the Dane’s lead when the road kicked up again. The chasers began to think about the final GC podium instead of the 59th Race of the Two Seas’ title.
Ayuso and Hindley soaked up the rest of the bonus seconds, +1:12 of the day’s victor.
Saturday’s penultimate stage features a very tough summit finish on Monte Petrano.
2024 Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 5
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) 3:28:27
2) Juan Ayuso (Spain/UAE-Emirates) +1:12
3) Jai Hindley (Australia/Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t.
2024 Tirreno-Adriatico GC
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) 18:34:45
2) Juan Ayuso (Spain/UAE-Emirates) +0:54
3) Jai Hindley (Australia/Bora-Hansgrohe) +1:20
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