They call it the Race of the Two Seas, and the name does exactly what it says. Tirreno-Adriatico starts by the Tyrrhenian coast in Tuscany, crosses the spine of the Italian peninsula through the Umbrian hills and the Apennines, and delivers its riders, usually in varying states of exhaustion, to the Adriatic shore at San Benedetto del Tronto a week later. It is the perfect warm-up act for Milan-San Remo and the spring classics season, offering a parcours that spans time trials, sprint stages, puncheur finishes and mountain brutality in the space of seven days. In 2026, the 61st edition runs from Monday 9 March to Sunday 15 March, and for the first time since 2023, it does so without either Tadej Pogacar or Jonas Vingegaard in the start list. The race is genuinely open, and the rider who won it last year is at Paris-Nice instead. Someone new is going to lift the trident in San Benedetto. The question is who.
Tirreno-Adriatico History: The Race of the Two Seas and Its Six Decades of Legends
The race was born in 1966, promoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport and created by the Lazio-based cycling club Forze Sportive Romane, initially as a three-stage affair called Tre Giorni del Sud. The name Tirreno-Adriatico was adopted from the outset when it actually appeared on the calendar, and the concept was immediately compelling: send the best professionals across central Italy from one coast to the other, at a time of year when legs are being sharpened for the monuments and every general classification rider is looking for racing days. Dino Zandegu won the inaugural edition, setting a precedent for the calibre of champion the race would attract. It would not take long for the big names to follow.
The race’s early reputation was built almost entirely by one man. Roger De Vlaeminck, the Belgian classics specialist nicknamed The Gypsy, won six consecutive editions between 1972 and 1977, a record that stands to this day and that, frankly, does not look like falling any time soon. De Vlaeminck also holds the record for stage wins at the race with fifteen, a figure that only underlines just how completely he dominated the event during that period. His dominance established Tirreno-Adriatico as a genuine proving ground for the spring classics, particularly Milan-San Remo, which traditionally follows a week later. After De Vlaeminck’s reign, the race passed through an era of Italian domestic rivalry, with Giuseppe Saronni and Francesco Moser each winning it twice and providing the Gazzetta’s readership with exactly the kind of intra-national grudge match they craved.
The 1990s brought a more international flavour, with Swiss time-trial specialist Tony Rominger and Dane Rolf Sorensen both winning twice. The race expanded to seven stages in 2002 and was included in the inaugural UCI ProTour in 2005, briefly departing that top-tier calendar in 2008 before returning as part of the UCI World Tour in 2011. The modern era is remarkable for the sheer quality of its roll of honour: Vincenzo Nibali won back-to-back editions in 2012 and 2013, Alberto Contador in 2014, Nairo Quintana in 2015 and 2017. Notably, Eddy Merckx never won Tirreno-Adriatico, making it one of the very few significant races of his era to escape him entirely.
The modern era has been one of Slovenian dominance. Primoz Roglic won in 2019 and 2023. Tadej Pogacar took back-to-back editions in 2021 and 2022. Jonas Vingegaard won in 2024 with a display of mountain climbing that left little doubt about his readiness for the Tour de France season. In 2025, Juan Ayuso broke the Slovenian stranglehold with a brilliant combined performance in the opening time trial and the queen stage at Frontignano, holding off a valiant challenge from Filippo Ganna, who became one of the very few non-climbers in recent history to finish on the final podium. Since 2010, the overall winner has been awarded a gilded trident, the Sea Master Trophy, ceremonially raised from the Tyrrhenian Sea by Italian coastguard divers in the days before the race. It is, without question, one of the most distinctive trophies in the sport.
Tirreno-Adriatico Past Winners: 2016 to 2025
| Year | Winner | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Juan Ayuso | UAE Team Emirates-XRG |
| 2024 | Jonas Vingegaard | Visma | Lease a Bike |
| 2023 | Primoz Roglic | Jumbo-Visma |
| 2022 | Tadej Pogacar | UAE Team Emirates |
| 2021 | Tadej Pogacar | UAE Team Emirates |
| 2020 | Simon Yates | Mitchelton-Scott |
| 2019 | Primoz Roglic | Team Jumbo-Visma |
| 2018 | Michal Kwiatkowski | Team Sky |
| 2017 | Nairo Quintana | Movistar Team |
| 2016 | Greg Van Avermaet | BMC Racing Team |
Tirreno-Adriatico 2025 Review: Ayuso Wins as Ganna Confounds the Climbers
The 2025 edition will be remembered as the race in which Filippo Ganna made the climbing world briefly very uncomfortable. The INEOS Grenadiers time trial specialist dominated the opening stage in Lido di Camaiore, beating Juan Ayuso by 23 seconds, and then proceeded to stay in contention over the hills of the following days in a way that simply should not have been possible for a rider of his profile. He wore the blue leader’s jersey for five consecutive days, defended it through mountain finishes and crosswind echelons alike, and heading into the queen stage at Frontignano still led the race by 22 seconds. It was one of the most unlikely GC rides in recent memory.
But Frontignano was a mountain finish, and on mountain finishes, Ayuso is a different animal. The Spaniard attacked on the final ascent with an authority that the entire peloton could see coming but could not match. He won the stage, reclaimed the blue jersey, and Ganna, who finished 50 seconds behind, could do nothing but admire what had just happened. A mechanical issue in the final kilometre of stage five might have been catastrophic, but the three-kilometre rule protected his time and he retained the blue jersey going into the queen stage. Ayuso was simply the stronger man when it mattered. Antonio Tiberi rode well throughout and took the final podium place, while Jonathan Milan dominated the sprint stages. Derek Gee and Jai Hindley filled out the top five on the general classification.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2025: Final General Classification
| Position | Rider | Team | Time Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Juan Ayuso | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | 28h 41′ 24″ |
| 2 | Filippo Ganna | INEOS Grenadiers | +35″ |
| 3 | Antonio Tiberi | Bahrain Victorious | +36″ |
| 4 | Derek Gee | Israel-Premier Tech | +42″ |
| 5 | Jai Hindley | Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe | +53″ |
Tirreno-Adriatico 2026 Course Guide: Seven Stages, No Summit Finish, and Two Days That Will Break the Race Open
The 61st edition is built on a familiar template, but with a notable absence: there is no high-altitude summit finish this year. That does not mean the climbers have been given an easy week. The organisers have packed 15,550 metres of climbing across seven stages, up 950 metres on last year’s total, concentrated particularly in stages five and six, which each feature close to 4,000 metres of climbing. The overall distance is 1,165.5 kilometres from the Tyrrhenian coast to the Adriatic, and the race will be decided, in all probability, before it gets anywhere near San Benedetto del Tronto.
Stage 1 (Lido di Camaiore, 11.5km ITT) opens proceedings for the fifth consecutive year at the same Tuscan seaside resort with the same flat, out-and-back time trial on the Tyrrhenian coast. With just eight metres of elevation gain across the entire course, this is a pure test of aerodynamic power on a dead-straight road. Filippo Ganna has won this stage three times already (2022, 2023, 2025) and will be the clear favourite to add a fourth. The gaps here will be modest but not irrelevant: in 2025, Ganna put 23 seconds into Ayuso, and that margin shaped the entire week.
Stage 2 (Camaiore to San Gimignano, 206km) is where the race immediately becomes interesting for the puncheurs and the GC riders. After a flat opening run down the coast, the stage turns hilly in the final 75 kilometres. The real novelty is the finish: a 5.3-kilometre gravel sector approaching the line at San Gimignano, peaking at up to 15% in the final kilometre. This is not a stage for the pure climbers, but it will shed the sprinters and could produce early GC time gaps. Stage 3 (Cortona to Magliano de’ Marsi, 221km) is the longest of the week and offers a sprinter’s finish on a slight uphill run-in. Expect the fast men to reassemble after the gravel exertions of stage two.
Stage 4 (Tagliacozzo to Martinsicuro, 213km) takes the race south through L’Aquila and across the Apennines via two major passes. The route is demanding in the middle but flattens out for the finale, likely setting up a sprint or a late-race attack from a small group. Stage 5 (Marotta-Mondolfo to Mombaroccio) is the first day that will genuinely punish the GC field, a hill-packed stage with barely a flat kilometre from start to finish and nearly 4,000 metres of climbing. The Monte delle Ceane, a proper 7-kilometre climb at over 7% average gradient, comes early enough to fracture the race before the circuit finale at Mombaroccio, where the gradients are explosive on the muro leading to the line. This is a day for the pure attackers.
Stage 6 (San Severino Marche to Camerino) is the queen stage and should settle the general classification. Sassotetto features early in the day, providing a first major selection point, but it is the finale that carries the decisive weight: a muro-style ascent with gradients reaching 18% in the closing kilometres. With 4,000 metres of climbing across the day and legs already ground down by stage five, this is where the differences between the true GC contenders and those merely in the conversation will become brutally apparent. Stage 7 (Civitanova Marche to San Benedetto del Tronto) is the traditional flat finale, a sprint into the Adriatic coastal town that has hosted almost every finish in the race’s history. Barring a collapse of extraordinary proportions, the trident will already have been decided the evening before.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2026: Race Details
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Dates | Monday 9 March to Sunday 15 March 2026 |
| Edition | 61st |
| Category | UCI WorldTour (2.UWT), Men Elite |
| Stages | 7 stages (including 1 individual time trial) |
| Total Distance | 1,165.5km |
| Total Climbing | 15,550 metres |
| Grand Départ | Lido di Camaiore, Tuscany, Italy |
| Final Stage Finish | San Benedetto del Tronto, Marche, Italy |
| Daily Coverage Starts (approx.) | 11:30 GMT (12:30 CET) |
| Daily Finish (approx.) | 15:30 GMT (16:30 CET) |
| Organiser | RCS Sport |
Tirreno-Adriatico 2026 Favourites: Isaac Del Toro, Roglic and the Battle for the Trident
The Clear Favourite: Isaac Del Toro
There is an argument that Isaac Del Toro does not arrive at Tirreno-Adriatico as a favourite so much as a confirmation. The 22-year-old Mexican has already won two stages and the overall at the UAE Tour this season, handling the pressure of leading UAE Emirates XRG in the absence of Pogacar with a composure that belied his age. He also finished ninth in the opening time trial in Lido di Camaiore last year, so he is not going to lose the race against the clock. Crucially, he has the support of Jan Christen, the AlUla Tour winner, which gives UAE a two-rider GC threat capable of attacking in different situations. With no Pogacar and no Vingegaard in the field, Del Toro is the closest thing this race has to a star, and he has done nothing this season to suggest he is unworthy of that billing.
Main Contenders
Two-time winner Primoz Roglic is the most compelling rival on paper. The Slovenian has forgotten more about winning stage races than most of his opponents have yet learned, and his record here, victories in 2019 and 2023, demonstrates that he knows how to calibrate his effort across a week and produce his best when the parcours demands it. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe also bring Giulio Pellizzari, the 22-year-old Italian who has been in good early-season form and who will relish performing in front of a home crowd on roads he knows well. Whether Roglic still has the freshness to match Del Toro over a stage six with 18% gradients is the central question surrounding his candidacy.
Matteo Jorgenson carries the weight of recent Paris-Nice history into a race that demands a very different set of skills. The Californian won that race back-to-back in 2024 and 2025 and is Visma’s nominated GC leader here. His time-trialling ability will be an asset in Lido di Camaiore, and he handles the kind of punchy, relentless terrain that fills stage five better than his stage race palmares might suggest. The open question, as always with Jorgenson, is the very top of the climbing ladder. Stages like Frontignano last year and the muro finale of stage six this year represent exactly the kind of gradient that tends to separate him from the very best.
Filippo Ganna deserves to be taken seriously as a GC contender purely on the basis of what he did in 2025. The INEOS Grenadiers man is not a climber in any conventional sense, but he has shown that his raw engine can absorb mountain days that would destroy most non-specialists. A strong time trial on stage one is virtually guaranteed. The question is whether he can repeat his 2025 mountain performances on a 2026 parcours that, with no real summit finish but two ferociously hilly days back-to-back, could actually suit him slightly better than last year. INEOS also have Antonio Tiberi, who finished third overall in 2025, available as a complementary climbing option if Ganna’s GC challenge fades in the hills.
Richard Carapaz is an intriguing inclusion in the start list. The Ecuadorian Olympic champion has not always delivered at WorldTour stage race level in recent seasons, but a week-long race in Italy, without the extreme altitude that sometimes exposes his limitations, suits his profile. He is a better puncheur than pure climber and the finish at Mombaroccio on stage five could be precisely his kind of day. Wout van Aert arrives with the uncertainty that has surrounded him all spring, but his presence signals that Visma want a second card to play. Van Aert at Tirreno-Adriatico is not a GC contender, but on stage two and stage five he could be the most dangerous rider in the race.
Dark Horses Worth Watching
Antonio Tiberi finished third overall here in 2025 and arrives with a fourth place at the Volta Comunitat Valenciana and a second at the UAE Tour already behind him. The young Italian is quietly assembling the kind of early-season consistency that suggests a big result is coming, and the home crowd factor on stages five and six should not be underestimated. He is riding in a Bahrain Victorious squad that has the depth to support a GC challenge properly.
The stage two finish at San Gimignano, with its gravel sector and punchy final kilometre, could produce a surprise result if the GC teams misjudge the pacing on the gravel. Mathieu van der Poel, confirmed in the Alpecin-Premier Tech line-up, is not a GC contender but is one of the most dangerous riders in the race on a day that ends on a 15% ramp after a gravel sector. His presence in the sprint for second last year at stage five shows he has the legs for the hills. On the right stage, he could take a win that nobody will see coming.
Ben Healy is a rider built precisely for stages like Mombaroccio and the muro finale of stage six: long, punishing days where the ability to ride at threshold for extended periods is worth more than pure vertical speed. The EF Education-EasyPost climber had a mixed start to his 2026 season at the classics but performs better in stage race format, and a parcours this relentless over the final three days suits him considerably.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2026 Outsiders: Sprint Contenders and Stage Hunters to Watch
The sprint stages should be dominated by Jonathan Milan, who won twice here in 2025 and arrives as the fastest man in the field on a flat run-in. Danny van Poppel of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Kaden Groves and Van der Poel for Alpecin-Premier Tech, and Paul Magnier of Soudal-QuickStep all represent legitimate stage-winning threats on the flatter days. The San Benedetto del Tronto finale on stage seven, historically unpredictable despite its flat profile, could yet produce a chaotic sprint that upsets the established hierarchy.
For GC outsiders, keep an eye on Jai Hindley, who finished fifth overall in 2025 and has the mountain legs to repeat that result on a parcours that suits his profile. Paul Lapeira of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale is a rider who tends to go underappreciated until the results sheet appears, and two ferociously hilly days back-to-back give a puncheur of his quality ample opportunity to gain time on rivals less comfortable at sustained pace. He arrives having already won the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes this season, which is precisely the kind of form that translates well to a race like this. Clement Champoussin of XDS-Astana could find a stage win on one of the breakaway-friendly middle days, and his teammate Christian Scaroni, fresh from winning the Tour of Oman, arrives in the kind of early-season form that should not be dismissed lightly in a race as open as this one.
Tirreno-Adriatico 2026 TV Coverage, Live Streaming and Stage Start Times by Country
Weather conditions at this time of year on the Italian peninsula can be highly variable, and 2025 was a reminder of just how brutal early-March racing in central Italy can be. The opening days in Tuscany should be dry and cool, with the major risk of poor weather coming mid-week as the race crosses the Apennines. Stage six, the queen stage, is the day to watch for weather as well as racing: the climbs above San Severino Marche can carry snow and biting wind in early March. All broadcast times below are in GMT.
| Broadcaster | Country / Territory | Coverage From (GMT) | Platform / Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TNT Sports / Eurosport | United Kingdom | 11:30 | TV and Discovery+ (subscription) | |
| RAI Sport | Italy | 11:30 | TV and RaiPlay (free stream) | |
| Sporza / VRT1 | Belgium | 11:30 | TV and VRT Max (free stream) | |
| France Télévisions / L’Equipe TV | France | 11:30 | TV and france.tv / lequipe.fr | |
| NOS | Netherlands | 11:30 | TV and NOS.nl (free stream) | |
| SRG SSR | Switzerland | 11:30 | TV and Play Suisse | |
| RTBF | Belgium (French-speaking) | 11:30 | TV and Auvio (free stream) | |
| VTM | Belgium (Flemish) | 11:30 | TV and VTM GO | |
| Viaplay | Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland | 11:30 | Streaming (subscription) | |
| J Sports | Japan | 11:30 | TV and streaming (subscription) | |
| SBS | Australia | 11:30 | TV and SBS On Demand (free stream) | |
| NBC Sports / Peacock | United States | 11:30 | Streaming (subscription) | |
| FloBikes | Canada and international | 11:30 | Streaming (subscription) | |
| DAZN | Germany, Spain, Canada | 11:30 | Streaming (subscription) |
All broadcast times are approximate and subject to change. Stage 1, the individual time trial, may begin earlier than subsequent stages. Check your local broadcaster’s schedule for confirmed daily start times throughout the week.
