Tirreno-Adriatico: Gaviria accepts Viviani beat him fair and square
Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) was disappointed to have a mistake lead to a third place finish in the sprint on stage 3 of Tirreno-Adriatico but sportingly accepted defeat and congratulated his good friend and respected rival Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) on his victory in Foligno.
"I tried to set up the sprint as best I could, but I made a mistake and so Elia won. I can only congratulate him," Gaviria said.
"I was in the wrong position and started my sprint a little late. Elia jumped before me and got it just right. I'm still happy but know I could have done better."
Gaviria was ahead of Viviani going into the testing final kilometres but the high-speed shuffle in the series of corners left him on Viviani's wheel on the exit of the last sweeping last corner. When the Italian champion accelerated out of the saddle in sight of the finish line, Gaviria did not have the speed or position to even try to go around him. He went shoulder to shoulder with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) but the photo finish showed he was third.
"We tried to win, but it was a complicated sprint with all the corners in the city streets. That's sprinting, that's cycling, today there were two great riders that were stronger than me. I have to accept that," Gaviria admitted, preferring to find the positive aspects of the long day in the saddle.
"There's not much else I could do. I'm just happy that I could sprint after 230km of racing and understand I'm on good shape for Milan-San Remo."
Friends before rivals
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