Tirreno-Adriatico 2014 - Stage 1
The 49th running of the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race got underway on the 12th of March with an 18.5 kilometre team time trial from Donoratico to San Vincenzo. The race has many of the big season favourites present once again this year, the likes of Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, Mark Cavendish and Nairo Quintana are all taking part in the race.
The race profile was pretty much completely flat, and team time trial world champions Omega Pharma-Quickstep were favourites along with Orica-GreenEDGE and BMC Racing. Although the race was only 18.5 kilometres, time gaps were expected and it was important for general classification contenders and their teams to put in a good performance to ensure they don't lose time at the first hurdle.
Omega Pharma-Quickstep were led by the world time trial champion by Tony Martin, and successfully won the opening team time trial for the second year running, also putting Mark Cavendish in the leader's jersey of Tirreno-Adriatico for the second year running. They put in the winning time of twenty minutes and thirteen seconds, averaging 54.905 kilometres an hour.
Orica-GreenEDGE came second on the stage, just eleven seconds down on the Belgian team. In third place was the team of Nairo Quintana, Movistar, who placed their Colombian climber well for the rest of the week. Alberto Contador's Tinkoff-Saxo team were next up in fourth place, Sky were a disappointing sixth place, twenty seven seconds off the pace.
Cadel Evans and Christopher Horner had the worst days out of the general classification contenders however. Evans lost fourty seven seconds, and Horner lost fifty three seconds. The day belonged to Omega Pharma-Quickstep however, and Mark Cavendish, who once again leads a major stage race on the WorldTour stage.