Tirreno-Adriatico

Tirreno-Adriatico is a men's WorldTour cycling stage race held each March in Italy. The route traditionally crosses the Italian peninsula from the Tyrrhenian coast to the Adriatic, linking the two seas through a mix of time trials, sprint stages, and mountain finishes.

Tirreno-Adriatico is an Italian stage race held in March and known as the Race of the Two Seas. It was first run in 1966 and has finished in San Benedetto del Tronto, on the Adriatic, every year since 1967. Roger De Vlaeminck won it six times in a row, and nobody else has won it more than twice.

How Tirreno-Adriatico began in 1966

The first edition was held from March 11 to 13, 1966, in three stages from Rome to Pescara. Dino Zandegù won it. The race has been held every year since, which makes it the longest-running Italian stage race after the Giro d’Italia.

Pescara was the finish only that once. Every edition since has ended in San Benedetto del Tronto, a fishing port in the Marche, and the 2026 finish was the 60th there. Jonathan Milan won the final stage on the seafront there three years in a row, from 2024 to 2026. The overall winner is given a trident as his trophy.

Roger De Vlaeminck’s six wins in a row

De Vlaeminck won every edition from 1972 to 1977. He also holds the record for stage wins with 15, ahead of the 11 of Óscar Freire. He was a Belgian classics rider, nicknamed Monsieur Roubaix, and Italians and Belgians won most of the early editions.

Eight riders have won the race twice. Giuseppe Saronni won in 1978 and 1982, Francesco Moser in 1980 and 1981, Rolf Sørensen in 1987 and 1992, and Tony Rominger in 1989 and 1990. Vincenzo Nibali followed in 2012 and 2013, Nairo Quintana in 2015 and 2017, Primož Roglič in 2019 and 2023, and Tadej Pogačar in 2021 and 2022.

Nibali takes the lead in the rain at Porto Sant’Elpidio

Stage 6 of the 2013 race went three times up the climb of Sant’Elpidio a Mare, where the road reaches a gradient of nearly 30 percent. It rained, and some riders got off and walked. Chris Froome started the day as race leader.

In the finale Nibali and Peter Sagan went clear, and Joaquim Rodríguez was the only rider able to join them. Sagan won the sprint, Froome finished about a minute behind, and Nibali took the lead by 34 seconds. Nibali said afterwards that the bad weather had encouraged him, because the cold troubled others more than it troubled him. He went on to win the race, as he had in 2012.

Van der Poel’s 52-kilometer solo to Castelfidardo

On stage 5 in 2021, Mathieu van der Poel rode away from the front group 52 kilometers from the finish in Castelfidardo, as a storm brought wind, rain and a sharp drop in temperature. He had lost more than 20 minutes the day before and was no threat to the overall standings, so the chase began only on the last of four laps of a 23.6-kilometer circuit. “I attacked from far away because I was cold,” he said after the finish.

Pogačar, the race leader, attacked 17 kilometers from the line on the 15 percent wall of Castelfidardo and left Wout van Aert, who was second overall. Van der Poel had built a lead of three minutes, and Pogačar cut it to 10 seconds at the line. Van Aert finished third on the stage, 49 seconds back, and Pogačar won the race for the first time.

Vingegaard’s two mountain stages in 2024

Jonas Vingegaard won stages 5 and 6 of the 2024 race in the Apennines of Abruzzo and the Marche. On the second, to Monte Petrano, the Bora-Hansgrohe team set the pace and Jai Hindley attacked. Vingegaard answered with an attack of his own and rode to the finish alone, as he put it, like a time trial. He won the race by 1 minute 24 seconds from Juan Ayuso and was the second Danish winner, after Sørensen. His win completed the first double of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico for the Visma-Lease a Bike team.

Ayuso wins at Frontignano, Del Toro at Camerino

In 2025 Filippo Ganna was leading when Ayuso attacked 3.5 kilometers from the top of the climb to Frontignano on stage 6, won alone and took the leader’s blue jersey. Ganna lost 50 seconds and dropped to third, one second behind Antonio Tiberi. On the last day he took three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint and moved back up to second, 35 seconds behind Ayuso.

In 2026 Isaac del Toro was already leading when he won the uphill finish in Camerino on stage 6, sprinting clear of Matteo Jorgenson. The last day again changed second place: Jorgenson, led out by Van Aert, took three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint and passed Giulio Pellizzari. Del Toro won the race by 40 seconds from Jorgenson, with Pellizzari 2 seconds further back. He was 22, and he is the first Mexican winner of Tirreno-Adriatico.

This is where the spring calendar shifts from one-day sprints to stage-race rhythm. Tirreno offers a compressed rehearsal for the Giro: climbers, time trialists, and all-rounders converge on a route that rewards versatility and punishes weakness. The race unfolds in March, when form is still provisional and the Apennines can deliver cold rain as easily as sunshine. It's a race that sorts contenders before the monuments arrive.