Milram’s Gerdemann wins Tirreno-Adriatico opener

Team Milram’s captain, Linus Gerdemann, won the opening stage and took the overall lead of Tirreno-Adriatico on Wednesday, in a 148-kilometer stage from Livorno to Rosignano Solvay, Italy.

Gerdemann got away in the last kilometer with Pablo Lastras (Caisse d’Epargne), Matti Breschel (Saxo Bank) and Luca Paolini (Acqua & Sapone), and took the win from Lastras, who was second. Breschel was third and Paolini fourth.

“(It was an) outstanding finale from our whole team,“ said Christian Henn, Milram’s director.

“We continued to attack at the decisive moment, which made our chance for the victory possible. Linus was very attentive and won the stage for us very cleverly. All in all, it was a very hard and strenuous day for everyone in the field. The temperatures were only between three and six degrees, it rained at the start and the streets were wet the whole way.“

Ukranian Dimitri Grabovskyy (ISD-Neri) rode a solo breakaway for much of the day, only being caught with 15km to go.

American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions) was seventh.

Milram sent off several attacks and counter attacks in the final kilometers, including some by Fabian Wegmann and Niki Terpstra. Pabol Urtasun (Euskaltel) also took a big flyer.

Gerdemann’s group took off as Terpstra and Urtasun were caught with just over 1 km to go.