"It really is a dream come true" - Fredrik Dversnes upsets the peloton with a breakaway victory at Tirreno-Adriatico

Stage 5 of Tirreno-Adriatico seemed like a coin flip between a breakaway stage and a day for classics men like Mathieu van der Poel. When the gap of the front seven grew over six minutes, it looked like favourites would take a day off... But with certain Fredrik Dversnes still close in the GC, the peloton couldn't afford to let the escapees on such a long leash.

And once the stage hunters smelled their opportunity, the chances of front group quickly thinned down. One by one, the breakaway riders were running out of energy in an attempt to hold off the launching peloton until only the aforementioned Dversnes was left alone at the head of the race with less than 10 kilometers to go. "Never give up," was running on his mind.

"I had two really tough and cold days behind me, but today the weather conditions were a lot better," he continues his story in a flash interview. "I tried to join the breakaway. I wasn’t sure if we would get a good lead, because I was still quite high in the rankings."

With his sports director shouting in his ear to give it his everything, the Uno-X Mobility rider pushed on and, when, the finish line appeared in his sight, he knew that he had done - he took his first WorldTour victory.

"We continued to work well together. On the last climb of the day, I got the green light from the support car to show all my cards. Fortunately, it was enough. It was quite a difficult last kilometre, it went uphill quite unpleasantly. I only knew that it was in the bag 500 metres from the finish. I am very happy with that."

It is certainly not the first professional victory for the 27-year-old Dversnes, but it is his first triumph at WorldTour level. "This is so incredibly important for my career. It is the biggest victory of my career, by far. To be on the top step of a WorldTour race, and in Tirreno-Adriatico at that… It really is a dream come true."