Cycling news - Julian Alaphilippe catches sprinters napping to win stage six bunch finish

ByEurosport

Updated 18/03/2019 at 21:42 GMT

Julian Alaphilippe stunned the sprinters with a gutsy finish to win stage six of Tirreno-Adriatico on Monday.

Julian Alaphilippe lève le poing après avoir remporté la 6e étape de Tirreno-Adriatico au sprint, le 18 mars 2019 à Jesi.

Image credit: Getty Images

The expected winners of the stage were so preoccupied managing themselves that they allowed Alaphilippe and Max Richeze to open up a gap going into the final 200m.

The sprinters realised their mistake, but too late, with even Deceuninck – Quick-Step's own Elia Viviani not able to pip Alaphilippe on the line.

Watch the remarkable finish as Alaphilippe beats the sprinters to Stage 6 win

Tirreno - Adriatico

Blazin' Saddles: 7 lessons learned from 2019 Tirreno-Adriatico

20/03/2019 at 18:05

"It’s been a successful week for Deceuninck – Quick-Step here in Italy and I am glad I could finish off the squad’s amazing work today," said the Frenchman after his stage win. "Kasper, Yves Max, everybody contributed to the pace and did a magnificent job on this stage, and for that I am extremely grateful.

"During the stage, Elia told me it was going to be a hard sprint and that he didn’t feel that good, so I was free to try and go for it. Everybody was tired today, you could see that in the bunch. I told him that we will see, then in the last kilometer I found myself on Max’s wheel and as soon as he dropped me in the front, I went full gas and that was it.

"I can’t tell you how happy and proud I am of my team, whom I want to thank, because this is also their victory."

Adam Yates protected his overall lead, which stands at 25 seconds over Primož Roglič, and speaking after the stage he said:

Like I said yesterday and like I said from the beginning, I’ll do my best and if it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough. I came here to win stages and I didn’t manage to win a stage but I got close on a couple of occasions and we’ve held the jersey for a few days now.

“So in my mind it’s been a good race, a good race for the team and whether or not I can hold on tomorrow, we’ll find out won’t we?”