ROME – The Belgian Tim Merlier won the second stage of the Italian Tirreno-Adriatico race on Tuesday by winning the mass sprint of the peloton in Sovicille (Tuscany), where the Italian Filippo Ganna kept the leader’s jersey.
At the end of this first stage in line (219 km), after the short inaugural time trial on Monday, the sprinter from Alpecin-Fenix was the strongest to overtake the Dutchman Olav Kooij (Jumbo) and the Australian Kaden Groves (BikeExchange).
The 29-year-old Belgian takes his 19th victory, the first in 2022, after a year 2021 marked by his stage successes in the Giro and then in the Tour de France, during an epic arrival in Pontivy where Caleb Ewan and Peter Sagan had fallen.
This time it was on a regular basis that Merlier beat the two cadors, the Slovak finishing 4th and the Australian 15th, at the end of a day animated by the Italians Davide Bais and Francesco Gavazzi (Eolo), taken over twenty kilometers from the line, then by the Spaniard Marc Soler (UAE), who started against but also caught, three kilometers from the goal.
“It feels good to win for the first time this year, I was already in good shape but I didn’t have the results yet,” commented the winner of the day.
“I first had to survive the mountains (the two small difficulties of the day, editor’s note), then the team put me in a very good position”, he added.
Ganna, wearing the azzurro jersey after his victory on Monday in the individual time trial, retains the overall lead ahead of the Belgian Remco Evenepoel (at 11 sec) and the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (at 17 sec), the two big favorites in the “race of two seas”.
Pogacar, defending champion, showed his appetite by even going for a bonus second in an intermediate sprint.
A minute of silence was observed before the start “to pay tribute to the victims” of the war in Ukraine and “to send a message of peace”.
The third stage, Wednesday between Murlo (Tuscany) and Terni (Umbria), is again promised to the sprinters.
