With most of the Mediterranean coast under the influence of an unseasonal March storm, the weather was certainly a determining factor in today's first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico with the icy cold rain punishing the rider's throughout the stage. Linus Gerdemann (GER - Team Milram) took today's victory slipping away with a group over the top of the last climb with four kilometres to go. Gerdemann edged out Spaniard Pablo Lastras (Caisse d'Epargne) and Saxo Bank's Matti Breschel (NED) to claim the stage and become the first leader of the race, with a six second advantage over Lastras. Best result for Cervélo TestTeam today was Thor Hushovd (NOR) in eleventh place. "We were expecting really nasty weather and I can't say we were lucky, but the weather this morning was a little better than we anticipated. If it had been snowing they probably would have cancelled today's race," said Jean Paul van Poppel, sports director. "In the beginning it looked good for the first 50 kilometres, there were no problems. Then the weather started and gave us some cold showers, then we went inland, over the climb and there is wet snow on the road and the riders got as wet as hell and they're also freezing their butts off, it was a very hard day for them. There was a one-man breakaway (Dmytro Grabovskyy UKR -ISD Neri) that reached a maximum of more than 5 minutes before he was pulled back on the stage's finishing circuit. We tried to put one man into the bunch sprint but unfortunately there were four riders who broke away at the last kilometre and made it to the finish line. We tried hard and the boys are ok despite a bad crash, 40 kilometres from the finish that involved two of our riders Andres Klier (SU) and Martin Reimer (GER). Both of them took a long time to get back. They needed new bikes and Reimer did not have a chance to make it back into the group and finished in the back where Cavendish was after he was dropped. We'll do inventory tonight and see where we are at, tomorrow's another day." Stage 1: Livorno - Rosignano Solvay 148km 01 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram 3:36:15
02 Pablo Lastras Garcia (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne
03 Matti Breschel (Den) Team Saxo Bank
11 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervélo TestTeam