BMC’s joy at Greg Van Avermaet’s stage victory and ascent to the race lead on the penultimate day of Tirreno-Adriatico was tempered by designated team leader Tejay van Garderen losing all hope of final overall victory when he was caught up in a crash in the finale.
Van Garderen was among the riders held up by a crash with 5 kilometres remaining, as a lined-out peloton battled to pull back the eight-man winning move, which featured Van Avermaet, Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep).
Although van Garderen avoided falling in the incident, a broken spoke left him requiring mechanical assistance and he was unable to latch back onto the main peloton. The American rolled across the line 1:20 down on the stage, losing all hope of a high finish on general classification.
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Van Garderen had begun the day in 4th place overall, just 9 seconds off the lead and very much in the hunt for final victory despite the cancellation of Sunday’s summit finish due to heavy snow. He now lies 26th overall, 1:32 behind Van Avermaet.
“Luckily I didn’t go down but I had to take a wheel change and couldn’t quite get back with the peloton. Taylor Phinney and Alessandro De Marchi did a great job of trying to pace me back but sometimes that’s just how it goes,” van Garderen said in a statement issued by his BMC team.
Tirreno-Adriatico was the first major target of van Garderen’s season and he vowed to maintain his motivation for Tuesday’s short, concluding time trial at San Benedetto del Tronto.
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