Tirreno-Adriatico 2018 Route stage 4: Foligno - Sassotetto
Saturday, 10 March 2018 - At 219 kilometres, the Tirreno-Adriatico's 4th stage runs from Foligno to the Sassotetto ski resort in the mountains above Sarnano. It's the Queen Stage with a dozen hills along the way, while the final climb up to the line amounts to 13.1 kilometres.
The final climb amounts to 13.1 kilometres with an average gradient of 7.3%. The climb was last included in the route of the 2010 edition when it was an intermediate climb of a stage with Colmurano as final destination. Enrico Gasparotto won the stage, while Michele Scarponi was race leader. The Italian, who was tragically killed last April during training after being hit by a vehicle, was defending his title but lost that year’s GC in the same time as Stefano Garzelli, who gained two bonus seconds on the last day of racing. Eventually, Garzelli held the tiebreaker for better stage placings over the course of all seven days of action.
In 2018, the ascent to Colmurano is one of many intermediate climbs. The 1 kilometre hill at 13% is crested halfway when the riders are racing the most hilly part of the route. The course climbs to such places as San Ginesio (6.3 kilometres, max incline 8%), Gualdo (6.5 kilometres, 13% max), Penna San Giovanni (5.5 kilometres, two of which with double digits) and Rustici before the descent to Sarnano, where the closing climb to Sassotetto commences. First a 1.5 kilometres drop and then the regular 13.1 kilometres toil to the ski resort begins. The riders tackle the steepest ramp at 12% after 5.4 kilometres of climbing.
The Queen Stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico starts in Foligno, where Nacer Bouhanni and André Greipel won bunch sprints in the Giro d’Italia’s of 2014 and 2016. In last year’s Giro the ITT of the 10th stage set off in Foligno, which turned out to be a show of strength of the eventual GC-winner Tom Dumoulin.
Straight after the start the route climbs the Valico di Colfiorito before a long and rolling descent runs to the grueling heart of the race, the aforementioned succession of short and sharp hills…
The first three riders on the line take time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds, while the two intermediate sprints (at kilometre 114.3 and at kilometre 205.8) come with 3, 2 and 1 seconds.
Read also: results/race report 4th stage 2018 Tirreno-Adriatico.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2018 stage 4: Route maps, height profiles, and more
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