Tirreno-Adriatico | Ayuso, Ganna and van der Poel attack in the rain, but it was Andrea Vendrame taking a surprise win

Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale have taken an important win today at Tirreno-Adriatico. Andrea Vendrame has won stage 3 after the final climb saw plenty attacks, and in the final kilometers even race leader Filippo Ganna tried to escape with a solo win.

With 240 kilometers and bad weather to tackle it was always going to be a tough day in the peloton, specially with the amount of climbing that there was to tackle. Neither the climbers, classics riders or sprinters had the upper hand on the day, rather it would come down to how the riders took on the race.

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An early breakaway group was caught with around 150 kilometers to go, likely not willing to spend the hours alone in the front whilst the peloton survived through the rain. With 66 kilometers to go however the real race kicked off with Dries de Bondt and Andrea Pietrobon going off the front and getting a few minutes on the INEOS-controlled peloton.

The rough weather really left it's mark, not only psychologically but leading to a crash involving several riders including Jonathan Milan. Into the final 18-kilometer long ascent Q36.5 pushed the pace in the steep part, but later on the peloton saw plenty teams hit the front before the final tough section.

The escapees were caught just inside the final 10 kilometers and shortly after Ben Healy launched an attack, followed by Juan Ayuso which then kicked off the action once again. Then Richard Carapaz went, with the peloton splitting in several groups as Ayuso, Gee, van der Poel and Ganna were all involved in closing each other down.

And after the climb, with no-one making the difference, it was the race leader Filippo Ganna himself attacking off the front trying to take advantage of the lack of organization. It seemed to be a deadly move, but after some riders put in strong work, it was Mathieu van der Poel himself who then went to close the gap.

It ended up coming down to a sprint in the end, with no leadouts, and it was the Italian sprinter who battled his way to the front to take a massive win ahead of Tom Pidcock and Romain Grégoire.

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