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Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) used a solo assault on the ultimate 3.5km of the Frontignano climb to win stage 6 of Tirreno-Adriatico and take over the race lead.
From a choose group of 4 chasers, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) completed second and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) took third, each 13 seconds again. Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) rounded out the highest 5.
Ayuso used a set of three accelerations on the ultimate climb to go a disintegrating breakaway group of eight riders, drop high contenders and transfer into the general race lead forward of Sunday’s closing dash stage in San Benedetto del Tronto.
Former chief Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) completed simply exterior the highest 10 at 50 seconds again, permitting him to cling to an general podium place with in the future to race. Ganna dropped to 3rd on GC, 38 seconds behind Ayuso and only one second behind second-placed Tiberi.
“We labored very well. The crew did an incredible job. The final ok or so I suffered a bit however I’m glad I made it,” Ayuso mentioned after the end.
“In the ultimate we knew we needed to make it arduous. It was fairly windy, and on a wheel you might save rather a lot. I’m glad I obtained on the wheel of [Isaac] Del Toro as a result of I used to be actually struggling on his wheel, however everyone else was [suffering] additionally.
“I simply went for it and I knew I simply needed to put in my tempo to the highest.”
The stage 6 triumph marked the third victory of the 2025 season for Ayuso, having received a pair of one-day races in early March, together with Trofeo Laigueglia per week in the past.
With time gained on the mountaintop ascent, Hindley moved from twelfth on GC to fifth, whereas Pidcock moved 9 spots to sixth and Landa jumped to seventh. Hindley remained fourth general, however misplaced 8 seconds and sits 4 seconds behind Ganna.
How it unfolded
The penultimate stage of Tirreno-Adriatico could be the ultimate probability for the riders battling for the well-known Trident trophy to make an impression on the overall classification. Stage 6 would take the riders 163km from Cartoceto to Frontignano, a day held on rolling roads other than the 7.7km, 7.8% summit end.
Attacks flew from the beginning of the day, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), however a transfer would not go clear till 15km of racing with Van der Poel’s teammate Gianni Vermeersch lead the aggression.
Vermeersch was joined within the break by stage 3 winner Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Samuele Battistella (EF Education-EasyPost), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-VisitMalta), and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility).
The group of six took a bonus of two:30 over the hilly early floor of the opening 50km, Ineos Grenadiers commanding a gradual tempo on the entrance of the peloton behind.
Vendrame, who began the day 2:35 behind race chief Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), moved into the digital lead by a slim margin as the center part of the stage commenced, one other 50km block earlier than the substantial rise of 5.6km, at 5% common gradient to Crispiero.
Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Chris Hamilton (Picnic-PostNL) attacked with 145km to go bridging throughout to affix the entrance of the race. With slightly below 100km remaining, the hole moved out to three:30 for the breakaway.
Once the leaders pushed the hole out to 4:30 with 80km to go, however the peloton, pushed by Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Q36.5, took slightly extra curiosity and commenced to get better a few of that point. Pietrobon took the 5 factors on provide on the KOM throughout Crispiero, whereas the hole for the entrance group dropped to three:10.
The eight riders labored nicely collectively as undulating roads steered in direction of the one intermediate dash of the day, Pieve Torina, a small city within the Monti Sibillini National Park that signalled the all-out climbing throughout the ultimate 20km to the summit end at Frontignano. Vendrame scored 5 factors for the maglia ciciamino plus three bonus seconds.
With 19km to go, the leaders handed over an unclassified climb at Le Fornaci with the lead right down to 2:32 due to the pace-setting of Israel-Premier Tech and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and lightweight rain started to fall.
Over the following 10km, the groups of the primary contenders, together with Bahrain Victorious with high 10 riders Antonio Tiberi and Pello Bilbao, trimmed the result in only one minute.
With 5km to go the tempo picked up behind the lead group, which had misplaced Thomas and Pietrobon. Over the following kilometre, solely Vendrame remained on the entrance and he was caught and handed on the ascent by Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Joining them was a swarm of riders in a stretched-out group that included Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5).
Ayuso continued to show up the fuel and put daylight between him and chasers, however extra considerably he put greater than 40 seconds into race chief Ganna to turn into the digital race chief with 3km to go.
The chase group was decreased to 4 riders who then battled for the ultimate two spots on the rostrum, with Pidcock popping out on high within the closing dash.
Results
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