On the first road stage of Tirreno-Adriatico Bardiani - CSF delivered a solid performance which was highlighted by Edoardo Zardini in the early breakaway and Nicola Ruffoni finishing 8th on the stage after the hectic sprint.
Stage 2 started in Camaiore and the finish was set in Cascina after 153km and a final flat circuit to cover two times. After the official start Zardini was the first to attack carrying away a breakaway with six riders.
The escapees anaged to get an advantage of almost 5:40 over the peloton which started to raise the pace in the second part of the stage and then got close.
When the escapees arrived on the final circui,t Zardini tried again followed by Salerno (Bora – Argon18) and Quintero (Colombia) and those three riders were caught with 15km to
The peloton entered the final km with a really high speed. Ruffoni was well placed behind Sagan (Tinkoff – Saxo) and Viviani (SKY), but Viviani touched Cavendish (Etixx – QuickStep) and went down in the final 100 meters. The Bardiani sprinter was fast to avoid the crash but lost speed.
Ruffoni started his sprint late and with a good comeback he passed some riders close to the finish line, ending in 8th place. The victory was taken by Belgian road champion Jen Debusschere (Lotto – Belisol) who outsprinted Sagan (Tinkoff – Saxo) and Bennett (Bora – Argon18).
“I knew that today would be really difficult and chaotic," Ruffoni said. "All riders wanted to stay in front in the final and we took a lot of risks. When I was launching my sprint I was affected by Viviani’s bad crash. I slowed down and in this moment I lost a second which is quite fundamental. When I restarted my sprint it was too late. The first riders were far ahead of me. I had a really fast comeback, showing a brilliant condition. The 8th place is a good result looking at what happened but I think I could do better. Here there are only two arrivals for riders like me and one of them was today."
”I wanted to be in the breakaway and I was the first to try," Zardini said. "My goal was to prove my shape. In the last weeks I have had some trouble due to a virus, which forced me to quit from Tour of Oman. So I didn’t arrive here with the best legs. But finally today I felt the first positive signs. I’m satisfied about my performance. Now I recover a bit and then let’s see to try again in the coming days when we will arrive at roads more suited for me."
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