Chris Froome (Sky) battled hard on the final ascent of yesterday’s 5th stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico to move into the race lead.
The Briton was once again backed up superbly by his Team Sky teammates on the run into Chieti to open up a 20-second lead at the top of the standings.
The general classification contenders once again went toe to toe on the brutally steep streets and it was Froome who pushed the pace as overnight leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick-Step) began to suffer.
Sixth on the stage among a group of elite favourites was enough to propel Froome into the leader’s maglia azzurra after Joaquím Rodriguez (Katusha) took a solo stage victory.
The Spaniard kicked on the steep ramps of the Via Salomone to win by eight seconds over Bauke Mollema (Blanco Cycling) and Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff).
“Every day we come in with a pretty solid plan,” explained Froome afterwards “and it seems to keep coming off. That’s not a position you find yourself in too often so it’s a really cool feeling to be part of a team like this that can go out and not only stick to the plan but get a result out of it too.”
Pounding on leader's sign of weakness
During the stage previous leader, Kwiatkowski, found himself in trouble and that made Froome accelerate his pace, “I had heard [Kwiatkowski] was slipping back which did motivate me a little bit more, but to be honest I was already going full gas.”
Froome was pleased to have cracked the defences of Kwiatkowski, “The team took it up with about 45-50 km to go on the last couple of climbs and really ripped it apart. We put a lot of pressure on the leader’s jersey and I think it paid off at the end of the stage as he eventually cracked on that final climb and I was able to get a gap over him.”
As for Monday's hilly stage, Froome expects an avalanche of attacks and a very hard day in the saddle, but said he relishes the task of defending his lead rather than desperately chasing valuable seconds, “It’s a great position to be in – defending. I’d rather be doing that than trying to gain time over someone. But tomorrow I’m expecting them to throw everything at us. I think the weather is going to take a turn for the worse, too. The course is up and down all day so it’s not going to be easy for us.”
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