Tommaso Dati shocked everyone on stage 1 of the Tour of the Alps, with the Italian on the third division squad Japanese Team UKYO pipping Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) to the victory in Innsbruck after a thrilling sprint finale.
Thymen Arensman had tried to steal a march with 3.7km to go after Ineos Grenadiers had lit up the final uphill roads in the run-in, but he was caught by a charging Dati in the final 400 metres, who was just able to hold off Pidcock.
“I was looking forward to the first stage of this Tour of the Alps, and I took the victory. It’s like a dream,” said Dati at the finish.
“We were looking for the last punch of this stage, this short climb, and we knew that maybe some riders could attack. I tried to follow the attack, but in the end, Arensman went, and I saved as much energy as I could for the sprint.
“It was amazing. The nicest day of my career.”
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How it unfolded
As racing kicked off from Innsbruck in Austria at the Tour of the Alps, it was Emanuel Zangerle (Team Vorarlberg) who made the first attack to form the early breakaway of the day. He was soon joined by teammate Tobias Nolde and Josef Dirnbauer (Hrinkow Advarics) to make it a trio in front, and they quickly built an advantage of close to five minutes.
Ineos Grenadiers and Jayco-AlUla moved themselves to the front of the peloton to control on what was an undulating opening 144.3km day of racing, with two categorised climbs but a downhill and then flat run to the line back in Innsbruck set to decide the first leader’s jersey.
Over the first of two laps up the Götzens climb, which averages 6.9% gradient for its 4 kilometres, the leading trio’s lead was reduced significantly to just two minutes, heading into the final 35km.
This gap almost entirely disappeared over the second time up the climb, with Nolde and Dirnbauer dropping, leaving Zangerle on his own out in front with the peloton dearing down on him. On home roads, Zangerle mopped up the maximum six bonus seconds on offer in Axams, with Dirnbauer taking four and Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla) getting an early advantage on his GC rivals by taking two seconds.
Jayco-AlUla did get on the front to try and bring back the lone leader, but there was no real urgency from anyone behind, allowing Zangerle to grow his advantage back out to 20 seconds heading into the city he grew up in.
Zangerle was caught finally with 5.2km to go after almost 140km in front, with Ineos piling on the pressure on the front as the roads kicked up on the outskirts of Innsbruck.
This completely strung out the peloton heading into the last 4km, and having put everyone to the sword, Thymen Arensman’s teammate let him steal a march off the front to try and ride solo for victory.
Defending GC winners Tudor tried to chase down the Dutchman, who was second overall at this race last season, but Arensman had eked out a decent gap with the kilometres ticking down quickly.
As Tudor started to run out of firepower, the continental side Team UKYO were sat in the perfect position, and with 250 metres to go and Arensman in sight, Tommaso Dati opened up his sprint into the slipstream of the Ineos man, flying by him and holding off Tom Pidcock for the biggest win of his career so far.
Results
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