It was a tough day at Tirreno – Adriatico stage 5 that had a top mountaintop finish at the Terminillo. In fact the riders found cold and snow on the final climb.

Several riders tried to go in the early breakaway today, one of the most active was Stefano Pirazzi but he didn’t have the luck to join the right one. At the top of the first climb of La Morca, 7km from the start, 8 riders formed the breakaway.

At the bottom of the last climb,  the peloton was less than two-minutes behind the breakaway. In the first part, several riders got dropped due to the high pace set by Sky. The final Bardiani riders to give up were Pirazzi and Enrico Battaglin.

In the final km, Nario Quintana (Movistar), went solo to bridge to the last escapee Scarponi (Astana) and take the victory. Behind him Mollema (Trek) was second with a gap of 0:41 and Rodriguez (Katusha) was third at 0:55.

”It was a hard day for all riders," Bardiani manager Roberto Reverberi said. "It was high pace from the start, cold and at the end the snow on Terminillo. We tried to go in the breakaway with Pirazzi but unfortunately he missed the decisive attempt. During the battle on the first climbs of the stage, several sprinters suffered and Ruffoni was forced to quit, also  due to a shape that was not brilliant this morning. Anyway all the guys were strong to finish the stage. I’m proud of them. Now we look ahead to tomorrow, a stage that seems good for us."