Danish neo-pro Magnus Cort has sprinted to an impressive fourth place on stage six of the Tirreno-Adriatico, his first WorldTour race.

On the second consecutive day of challenging conditions, Cort contested for stage honours from a reduced bunch after a large part of the peloton lost contact mid-race. Tinkoff-Saxo’s Peter Sagan won the stage.

“Firstly, there was quite a big selection and there was a few key sprinters who weren’t there so he has done well to make that group,” sport director Matt Whitesaid of Cort.

“Tinkoff-Saxo rode very aggressively mid-race, there was a five kilometre climb. I am not sure if they were chasing time bonuses or they just wanted to create havoc with the likes of (Mark) Cavendish but they certainly did that.

“Then, it was a quality sprint to finish off from a neo-pro in his first World Tour event, that’s for sure.”

After a gutsy ride amongst the best climbers in the world yesterday, 22-year-oldAdam Yates also ensured he was amongst the front group to retain sixth position behind overall leader Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team).

“We were just happy to stay out of trouble with Adam on the final circuit,” White said.

“It’s all going to come down to around 11minutes tomorrow to find out the final places on general classification.”

Having defrosted from yesterday’s queen stage that saw riders endure snow on the final ascent to the finish in Terminillo, today’s conditions didn’t improve.

From the start in Rieti to 210km and over five hours later in Porto Sant’Elpidio, the peloton rode in considerably wet and cold conditions.

Three riders worked for a period off the front, but were kept in check by Tinkoff-Saxo and the race was back together with 50km to ride.

As riders passed the finish line to start the first of two 14km finishing laps, Alessandro Vanotti (Astana Pro Team) had a narrow lead to the first of two large groups of riders and over five minutes to the back group who were out of contention for the stage.

Vanotti was soon joined and then attacked by Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r La Mondiale) but the race at the front was back together with three kilometres to go, setting up the eventual reduced bunch kick.