Climbers’ jersey and top-10 sprint, a beautiful Tirreno Adriatico day for Team Polti Kometa

Said and done. In our Tirreno Adriatico preview, Davide Bais had been clear: this year he tries again to assault that KOM jersey that was only taken from him by Primoz Roglic last year.

Today, in the second stage (first road stage after yesterday’s ITT) of la corsa dei due mari, disputed along the Tuscan coasts, the rider from Trentino immediately attacked together with three riders from other Italian ProTeams and on the only uphill of the day in Castellina Marittima there was no contest. The Polti Kometa man in fact launched himself more than a kilometer from the summit, placing himself at the top of the first climbers’ classification of this edition.

With the thought of defending this leadership in the upcoming days, the younger Bais brother could catch his breath and be caught 45 km from the finish, leaving space for the approach of the sprinters towards the Follonica sprint dominated by Philipsen. There, Mirco Maestri did a powerful job for Giovanni Lonardi, who crowned a beautiful day for Team Polti Kometa by finishing seventh.

“This year I came to the Tirreno Adriatico to try the extra step of winning this jersey! – says Davide Bais wearing the green color – Today we knew there was only one categorized climb and I went immediately on breakaway with the intention of winning it”.

Lonardi‘s testimony could not be missing either: “It was a very linear stage, in the end everyone had legs and it wasn’t easy to find the right positioning. Perhaps I should have arrived further ahead at that last narrow corner, but you do what you can and tomorrow (even with a slightly uphill finish) we’ll try again!”

Summing it up, the analysis from sports director Stefano Zanatta: “We hit the day’s target with Davide, very good at attacking and managing, then we gave a good hand to Giovanni amidst many teams well equipped for sprints. A more than positive day and we want to continue like this”.