Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) punched the air after crossing the finish line at Tirreno-Adriatico, rejoicing a second successive win in the Italian stage race.

"It's been a great race and it's a huge personal satisfaction to win Tirreno-Adriatico. I've beaten some big rivals, people who I've only faced before at the Tour de France," Nibali said after lifting the trident winner's trophy, with Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) looking on from the podium.

On the day, Nibali finished 12th in the rainy 9.2 km final time trial, granting only 11 seconds to Froome to keep a 23 second lead on general classification.

"I had a good margin after yesterday and so I didn’t want to take any risk on a few of the wet corners. I was sure I'd win but the last battle with Froome was at the Tour de France and I've changed my time trial position since then. This was the first test. It still needed a huge effort to win and I give it everything in the time trial."