The prologue of Tirreno-Adriatico marked the first WorldTour race of the season for BORA – ARGON 18. The stage over 5.4 kilometers in Lido di Camaiore was taken into the race’s schedule on short notice because the planned team time trial couldn’t take place due to bad weather conditions. Adriano Malori (Movistar) set the fastest time, slightly ahead of Fabian Cancellara (Trek) and Greg van Avermaet (BMC). Sam Bennett was the fastest rider of BORA – ARGON 18, 20 seconds behind today’s winner.

“We knew beforehand that it’s going to be tough to score a top result without a time trial specialist in a prologue. The result shows that our riders all finished within 10 seconds, which is rather compact. This balanced performance always makes us strong in team time trials. So the cancellation of the TTT today wasn’t of advantage for us. Firstly, looking ahead to the Tour de France, we’d like to ride a TTT to train the processes. Secondly, we would have scored a better result for sure. But it is what it is and the upcoming days are our main goal. We want to fight for a stage win. Tomorrow, one could expect a bunch sprint. We’ll ride for Sam and we hope that he’ll have a good day”, comments BORA – ARGON 18 Sport Director Enrico Poitschke on the opening of Tirreno-Adriatico.

The second stage of the Italian “race of the two seas” is made for the sprinters. Starting in Camaiore, the stage will cover 153 kilometers before it finishes in Cascina. Besides a short climb that has to be conquered two times in the first hour of the race already, the profile is completely flat.