A daring solo raid and highly anticipated sprint shoot out provided all the excitement at Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico.

Paris-Nice, Stage 5, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Salon-de-Provence, 198km

Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) attacked on the last descent, caught and passed the lone leader, then held the sprinter’s teams at bay to take a solo victory and move up to second overall. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) won the bunch sprint for second, with Orica-GreenEDGE’s Michael Matthews taking third. Bling holds a mere 6sec advantage on Lutsenko, and 18secs over Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). However, with a minute separating the top 30 it’s all to play for on the Queen stage.

Out in the break on his home roads – Canadian Antoine Duchesne (Direct Energie) aka Tony the Tiger… he’s Grrrrreaaaaat!

Taking a call from Vino perhaps???

Quick recap of the day…

Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 3, Castelnuovo Val di Cecina to Montalto di Castro, 176k

The highly anticipated clash between two outrageously talented sprint phenomenons did not disappoint. Fernando Gaviria just pipped Orica-GreenEDGE’s Caleb Ewan in the uphill finish to take Etixx-Quick Step’s second win in as many days. Elia Viviani (Sky) was the best of the rest in third place. Quick Step are certainly on a roll at Tirreno. Zdenek Stybar retains the lead in the overall and mountains classifications while Bob Jungels is best young rider [of course]. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) swaps the rainbow bands for the red points jersey.

Bossing the podiums: L-R Young Bobby, Styby and Gaviria [as yet without a VeloVoice nickname]

Highlight’s here…

Links: 

Official site for Paris-Nice, Twitter #ParisNice

Official site for Tirreno-Adriatico, Twitter #Tirreno

Featured Image: Spriiiiint finish at Tirreno-Adriatico – ANSA / LUCA ZENNARO (via race website)