Tirreno-Adriatico (st. 2)

Well supported by his Movistar team-mates, Richard finishes inside the reduced field's sprint at a rolling Tirreno stage two finish, as Edu crashes, suffers blows and bruises all over his body.

Julian Alaphilippe (DQT) took a punchy climbers’ sprint victory at the end of stage two in the 2019 Tirreno-Adriatico, a rolling 195km parcours from Camaiore to Pomarance. The slightly uphill finish, featuring numerous attacks -from classics contenders, such as Daniel Oss (BOH), or climbers like Primoz Roglic (TJV)-, reduced the bunch to barely thirty riders, including the Movistar Team’s main reference for the Italian event: Richard Carapaz.

Very well supported in the finale by the ever-dependable Nelson Oliveira, José Joaquín Rojas and Lluís Mas, the Carchi native did not lose a single second over the line (26th) and remains 1’32” behind new race leader Adam Yates (MTS) in the overall standings. The day also had a negative sidenote, as a crash with 40km remaining caused several blows and bruises -mostly to his left wrist and right-hand side- to Edu Prades, who was still able to finish the stage around two minutes back.

A day for sprinters is scheduled for Friday’s Tirreno-Adriatico stage three -yet a very long one, 226km finishing in Foligno- before the brutal slopes in the inside of the country, set to decide the overall result of the ‘Race of the Two Seas’ in 2019.

Cover picture (c): Dario Belingheri / BettiniPhoto.net