Cycling
Jasper Philipsen (26) has won the second stage in the Tirreno-Adriatico. The sprinter from Alpecin-Deceuninck beat compatriot Tim Merlier (31) with superior force in a bunch sprint. It is Philipsen’s first victory of the season.
As expected, we had a bunch sprint the day after the flat opening time trial of ten kilometers, in which Juan Ayuso surprisingly beat top favorite Filippo Ganna. The four early escapees – the Swiss Jan Stöckli and the Italians Lorenzo Quartucci, Filippo Magli and Davide Bais – were caught back in time by the sprinter teams in the peloton.
The run-up to the sprint was disrupted here and there by a small crash. About five kilometers from the finish, Chris Froome was one of the victims. At twenty kilometers Mark Cavendish had already had a flat tire. The ex-world champion would later no longer compete for victory.
In the bunch sprint, Merlier took the lead quite early, Philipsen zoomed past his ex-teammate. Merlier fell silent and Philipsen won by force majeure. Merlier was able to hold on to second place, Biniam Girmay finished third but was later declassified for a dangerous maneuver.
This contains inserted content from a social media network that wants to write or read cookies. You have not given permission for this.
Click here to adjust your preferences
For Philipsen it was his first victory of the season. It was also only his fourth race after the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and Monday’s time trial in Tirreno-Adriatico.
