The queen stage at Tirreno Adriatico saw the peloton faced with a short 148 kilometre long day in the saddle with a summit finish atop the 14 kilometre long climb of Prati di Tivo. A breakaway of five riders was able to establish itself at the head of the race, quickly building up a large advantage of eight minutes, with all Team DSM riders in the bunch.

Working together, the team kept Romain Bardet safe heading onto the last ascent, with climbers Martijn Tusveld and Chris Hamilton shepherding him halfway up the climb before the attacks started. Riding strongly, Bardet stayed within the GC group as other riders were dropped but had to let go of the wheels himself at three kilometres to go. Riding maturely and within himself, he paced his effort all the way to the line and ended the stage in 13th place for the team, moving up to just outside the top ten on GC.

“It was the first summit finish of the year for me. The way we came into the last climb together as a team was really nice and the guys got me into a good position,” explained Bardet. “I feel like I’m still missing a bit of speed in the legs but for the first summit I was not too far behind. I missed a bit when the guys attacked with three kilometres to go, but I was able to recover and keep a solid pace until the end. I think I really needed that, to fight hard for 40 minutes to come into my season. It’s a good first mark and we’ll aim to keep improving on that.”

Team DSM coach Matt Winston added: “We wanted to bring Romain into position for the final. The guys did a good job of looking after him all day actually with some good teamwork. We lost each other a bit on the hectic descent before the last climb but managed to find each other coming into the bottom of it. It was pretty hard all the way up and Romain wasn’t able to react when the attacks started. He paced himself well to the finish though and it’s a good first benchmark for him. It’s the first mountain top finish where we’ve really raced it with him and we’re feeling pretty positive about the result.”