Aru salvages 13th in finish after two punctures

Tirreno-Adriatico’s finish in Filottrano was highly anticipated within the group given the small hilltop town was home to Michele Scarponi, who died last year, and offered a technical final to shake up the race. And the cyclists went at top speed, a high 41.6km average, even though yesterday they had climbed to the Sassotetto ski station. Adding to that, team leader Fabio Aru suffered not one, but two setbacks.

“Unfortunately, I punctured twice in the crucial moments and re-entering the group cost me a good amount of energy,” Aru said. “In these stages, with such rivals, you pay for every effort you make.

“But there are some good notes because my condition is improving and I didn’t lose so much time in the general classification. In fact, I was there fighting.

“Besides that, today was hard because of the emotions that were going on. To return to Filottrano, to see images of Michele everywhere, brought out a series of emotions in me that are hard to explain. It was almost unreal.”

Brit Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) shot off for the solo win and world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) placed second ahead of new race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky).

Tomorrow, they all line up for the sixth stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, which will travel 153 kilometres from Numana to Fano.

Finishing order

1 Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 4:16:35

2 Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) +7’’

3 Michal Kwiatkoswski (Team Sky) +7’’

20 Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) +38’’

21 Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) +38’’

General classification after five stages

1 Michal kwiatkoswski (Team Sky) 21:31:28

2 Damiano Caruso (BMC) +3’’

3 Mikel Landa (Movistar) 23’’

13 Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) +1’19’’