Giro d’Abruzzo is not the biggest race on the calendar but its mountain top finish on Prati di Tivo delivered entertainment, with UAE Emirates tactical mishaps leading to an Alexey Lutsenko win and new climbing record – quicker than Tadej Pogačar’s 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico time.
UAE Emirates were the huge favourites to win the stage, and the race overall, as they had attended with Jan Christen, Diego Ulissi, Pavel Sivakov and Adam Yates. Despite Yates returning after his horrific crash in the UAE Tour in February, it was a formidable squad for a 2.1 race. 19-year-old Christen was the race leader after winning stage 2 but the team opted to work for Yates who is the stronger climber and well suited to this finish.
Prati di Tivo (14.7 km, 7.0%) is the perfect climb for high w/kg performances as it is regular and averages 7% gradient. Pavel Sivakov before the climb spent 3,260 kilojoules for 3:36h, which is 13.11 kj/kg/h, a moderate intensity but not as hard as high mountain Grand Tour stages.
WIth UAE Emirates setting a very hard pace from the bottom, supported by a tailwind, it was always going to be a fast ascent. Tadej Pogačar won the 2021 Tirreno Adriatico stage on tivo, doing 6.41 ᵉW/Kg for 36:06 min. It was a huge performance a few years ago but as the cyclists become stronger and better at everything related to power, it was not a surprise seeing WorldTour riders putting Pogačar’s record in danger in a mid-week warm-up race.
Diego Ulissi did most of the pulling in the group, pulling for 4 kilometres until 5.5 km to go before Adam Yates told Sivakov to attack the small group, which contained Voisard, Brenner, George Bennett, Alexey Lutsenko and Paul Double. After Sivakov and Yates could not drop Lutsenko the tempo slowed down. With 1.8 km to go Ulissi returned after recovering from pulling to join Yates and Lutsenko. Despite Ulissi being better at sprinting than Yates he pulled the last kilometre. With no big surprises Lutsenko outsprinted Yates, putting the final nail in the UAE coffin.
Diego Ulissi and practically every rider in the top 20 did great watts on Prati di Tivo. The stage finisher Lutsenko did it in exactly 36 minutes, beating Pogačar’s record by 6 seconds. As Lutsenko drafted almost the whole climb he averaged 6.28 ᵉW/Kg, while Yates did 6.30 ᵉW/Kg. The hero of the day was Ulissi who finished second, ahead of Yates despite doing the leadout, producing 6.41 ᵉW/Kg across the whole climb. This is possibly the greatest climbing performance in a 2.1 race of all time, even better than Jonas Vingegaard’s performances in the previous editions of O Gran Camiño and Mauricio Moreira in Volta a Portugal in 2022.