9 Mar 2025

Another World Tour race for Team Polti VisitMalta: it’s Tirreno-Adriatico’s week

Tirreno Adriatico (2.UWT)

From 10th to 16th March

After the first World Tour classic of the calendar, tomorrow Team Polti VisitMalta will also take on its first top-tier stage race: just like at Strade Bianche, the Italian squad has been invited to Tirreno-Adriatico every year since it moved up to Professional status in 2021. Stefano Zanatta will once again be in the team car, but the lineup will be completely different from the one that tackled the white roads of Siena yesterday. Three key riders of the roster — Davide Piganzoli, Mirco Maestri, Giovanni Lonardi — will ensure competitiveness on all terrains. Supporting them will be two breakaway specialists, Fran Muñoz and Andrea Pietrobon, a pure climber like Davide Bais and a high-quality attacker like Alessandro Tonelli.

The race that has connected two Italian seas from west to east for sixty years now features 7 stages, one for each day of the week: a total of 1,147.5 kilometers with 14,400 meters of elevation gain. After the ITT in Lido di Camaiore and the sprint in Follonica, three long and undulating stages through Umbria, Abruzzo and Marche will prepare the riders mentally and physically for the showdown on Saturday in the Sibillini Mountains: a series of steep ramps leading up to the final 8 km climb at 8% in Frontignano. On Sunday, the traditional finish for pure sprinters in San Benedetto del Tronto.

Tonelli: “O Gran Camiño was my debut with Polti VisitMalta and it went better than I expected. Now I can’t wait to put my experience to the test at Tirreno-Adriatico, which in some ways is even tougher than the Giro d’Italia because the pace is always incredibly high on technically demanding routes.”

Sports Director Zanatta: “We’re approaching this event with great confidence! Piganzoli has come out of O Gran Camiño in great shape, Lonardi is sprinting well and they’ll have the right teammates by their side to showcase our image.”