Strade Bianche Tuscany, Italy

6 MARCH 2021

Jumbo-Visma start to apply the pressure midway through Strade Bianche, stringing out the peloton to breaking point. As the team of defending champion and race favourite Wout van Aert, Jumbo took responsibility for maintaining the gap to the early break, then made the pace to set their Belgian leader up for an attack. Jumbo’s work reduced the size of the peloton considerably, and Van Aert duly surged to force an elite selection clear. But he was either not as strong as last year, when he rode away to a solo win, or he overcommitted. When attacks from Julian Alaphilippe then Mathieu van der Poel put the pressure on, Van Aert slipped backwards. Van der Poel would contest the finish with Alaphilippe and Egan Bernal, but with the Dutchman in supreme physical form, neither Alaphilippe nor Bernal could match his fierce race-winning attack on the final climb in Siena.