Team Colombia-Coldeportes really cared about proving right away, in the first Tirreno-Adriatico road stage, how much they care about the ‘Race of the Two Seas’, and it took less than a kilometre for Carlos Julian Quintero and Camilo Castiblanco to launch themselves on the attack along with 5 more riders.

They would eventually staying clear until a few kilometres to the line and the final sprint. Belgian National Champion Jens Deubusschere surprisingly came out on top of the mass dash, preceding Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon18) while a crash with 300 metres to go took out of contention riders like Elia Viviani (Team Sky) and Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida). Adriano Malori (Movistar) held the overall lead conquered Wednesday with his opening time trial win.

“We wanted to give a sign, to make it clear what our attitude towards this very prestigious race is,” Carlos Julian Quintero explained to the Columbia website, after attacking along with teammate Camilo Castiblanco, Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani CSF), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Cristiano Salerno and Patrick Konrad (Bora Argon 18), and Martjin Keizer (LottoNL – Jumbo) on the very moment the race director lowered the flag.

The seven escapees opened up to a 5.45 advantage on a mainly flat route, with the exception of the early double climb of the Monte Pitoro, and on a mild sunny day, refreshed only by a moderately intense wind.

Behind the escapees, Mark Cavendish’ Etixx-Quickstep held the reins of the bunch, controlling and reducing the avantage of the frontrunners, who saw their margin drop to 1.30 with 50 km to go. At 30 km to the line, Zardini, Salerno and Carlos Quintero, arguably were the fresher among the attackers, tried another acceleration, remaining to the fore until 15 km to go.

The very fast finale of a stage run at an over 43 km/h average was characterized by two crashes: the first happened with 10 km to go, while the second unfolded when the sprint had already been launched, ruining the plans of sprinters like Mark Cavendish, and giving a surprising win to Lotto-Soudal’s youngster.

Luckily, no Colombia-Coldeportes rider was involved in the crashes, but Edwin Avila saw his comeback chances disappear, and could not go over the 46th place.

Quintero was a man on a mission at the start in Camaiore, with a goal that barely slipped away of his hands: “I wanted to wear the KOM green jersey, and that was my goal for the day. Wyss managed to close my trajectory on the first categorized climb, where I was second, while I managed to preceed him on the second climb. We had the same points, unfortunately he sits ahead in the GC, and that gave him the jersey. It’s a pity, but I could try again …” said Carlos.

The peloton will remain in Tuscany tomorrow for the third stage, 203 km from Cascina to Arezzo, where the riders will end with a circuit to be repeated 6 times, and characterized by a short final uphill drag.