Filippo Ganna and Mathieu van der Poel played Milan-San Remo cat and mouse during the final kilometres of the rain-soaked 239km Tirreno-Adriatico third stage to Colfirito on the high plains of central Italy.
With 3.5km to go on the stage, Ganna made a solo attack on the gradual climb to the 760m high plain, while Tom Pidock (Q36.5) was initially unable to close the gap.
Van der Poel had eyed the stage and seemed well suited to the gradually rising final 10km. He surged across to Ganna with 1.5km to go, stopping the race leader from taking a second stage win.
However, the Dutchman had no reply when Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) hit the front and won the sprint. Van der Poel finished 20th at the line before quickly disappearing to his Alpecin-Deceuninck team bus to get warm.
After six-and-a-half hours of racing, Ganna still had to complete the podium protocol afterwards, but had no regrets about his late attack – or the fact that Van der Poel had chased it down.
"When you're racing to win, you don't worry about your rivals. I'd have done the same to him," Ganna said after the stage, with no animosity.
"I've got a lot of respect for him but when we're on the bike, it's race on. If we'd gone away together, we might have stayed away…"
Both Ganna and Van der Poel were testing their form after six hours of racing in the rain and cold. In 10 days they will clash with Tadej Pogačar and other Classics and sprint stars over the 289km of the season's first Monument, Milan-San Remo.
"I tried to go early to see how I felt after six hours of racing. It was a good test for the next long races," Ganna explained.
"I could have waited for the sprint but when you feel like attacking, you have to follow your instinct and go for it. I wanted to win. I can only thank the team. We raced hard and defended the jersey again.
"It was just me and Laurens de Plus in the final kilometres and he's targeting the GC, so I didn't want to take risks in the sprint.
"I didn't win but it's proof that my legs are good. Sometimes you've got to push your limits, see how you feel and try to improve."
