"It was pretty much the perfect finish for me": Tobias Lund Andresen surpasses star sprinters at Tirreno-Adriatico

Unlike the exciting racing over in France, the Wednesday's stage of Tirreno-Adriatico passed rather quietly with parts of the stage neutralised due to safety concerns on wet descents. At the end of the rainy day, many sprinters have already found their matches soaked through and through, but not Decathlon CMA CGM's young speedster Tobias Lund Andresen who was unmatched in Magliano de' Marsi.

"Today was okay because you had time to put on rain jackets and stuff, it’s pretty much that the first 150km is like a massive group ride, you’re just going around, talking to friends, and then it’s like a new race with 30km to go," Lund Andresen told CyclingProNet after the stage.

The 23-year-old Dane is profiling himself as one of the best specialists for today's type of finish - a slow, uphill drag. "Yeah, I think it was a nice finish, it didn’t rain too much towards the end."

The likes of Jonathan Milan and Jasper Philipsen seemed to have lost their speed on the rolling climb. "That’s what I hoped for at the start, that maybe it would be too long for the big guys, pretty much the perfect finish for me, so I’m happy to take advantage of it," said Lund Andersen.

The victory was largely made possible thanks to his Scandinavian teammates Tord Gudmestad and Rasmus Sojberg Pedersen who set up Lund Andersen's sprint position perfectly, even though they were largely assisted in their job by Milan's very early sprint launch.

Pedersen was later awarded a yellow card for interfering with other sprint trains after having finished his task.

Regardless, Lund Andresen was full of praise for his teammates: "My leadout is so good, a big congrats to them also for the job. They were super committed, we did exactly like the plan and I’m proud of them," he concluded.

Stage 7 to San Benedetto del Tronto could be the Dane's only other opportunity as the stages 4, 5 and 6 include climbs most likely too challenging for the versatile sprinter.