Tirreno-Adriatico, the race across central Italy, on tap for Wednesday.
Tirreno-Adriatico is a seven stage race that crosses central Italy from coast to coast, often called the race of two seas. It’s often overshadowed by Paris-Nice, but is usually a hard fought battle for both GC contenders and stage win hopefuls. In 2010 the overall victory was decided with a tie-breaker on the final stage, and 10 riders were within 1 minute of the overall victory!
In 2011, Team Garmin-Cervélo will be looking for a fast start in the 16.8 km team time trial. The profile for the TTT is pan-flat so look for the winners time to be close to 17 minutes even (that is 60 km/h for those of you keeping track!)
After the team time trial the race has two flat stages for the sprinters before transitioning into hillier, more decisive stages for the overall GC contenders. Stages 4, 5, and 6 all have lumpy course profiles and should favor the climbers. Stage 6 may be the decisive stage for the overall GC with a steep uphill finish in Macerata.
Our start list for Tirreno-Adriatico includes:
Tyler Farrar, Roger Hammond, Thor Hushovd, Andreas Klier, Brett Lancaster, David Millar, Ramunas Navardauskas, and Matt Wilson are all slated to start.
We’ll be looking for some good aggressive racing all week at Tirreno, but you have to give our line-up a good shot at winning the opening team time trial. Riders like David Millar, Bret Lancaster and Tyler Farrar all have good experience racing on the track, which is always a plus in team time trials. With a strong leadout and two world class sprinters, we also have a great chance of grabbing a stage win in a possible sprint on stages 1 and 2.
It should be a fantastic week of racing, stay tuned to our team site, or like us on Facebook for the latest race updates!
More photos from previous editions of Tirreno-Adriatico:
