The longest stage of this year’s race – a 239km monster with that nasty sting in the tail – saw five riders go clear in the breakaway, with all four ProContinental teams represented.

BMC Racing led the peloton, with even blue jersey Patrick Bevin taking a pull on the front – clearly highlighting that van Avermaet would be their protected rider.

Nicola Bagioli (Nippo-Vini Fantini) cemented his lead in the mountains classification from the break, who still led by seven minutes after 150km of racing, but Bora-hansgrohe sent Marcus Burghardt to the front of the bunch to chop into that advantage.

As the pace increased, the peloton lined out and by the first ascent of Trevi the gap to the break was tumbling and the peloton was thinning.

The Slovenian had a decent gap as he entered the final kilometre, while Sagan was among the riders dropped at the back of the bunch.

Van Avermaet attacked inside the final 500m, as did Yates, but Roglic stood firm even as the fierce gradients of the final kilometres bit hardest.

Yates closed in fast but ultimately not fast enough, just running out of road as Roglic celebrated the stage win ahead of the Englishman and Benoot.

Thomas stole a march on the rest of the bunch, meanwhile, and will now wear the blue jersey on stage four – the queen stage, which concludes with the Sarnano Sassotetto climb.

Tirreno-Adriatico 2018: stage three – result

1) Primoz Roglic (SVN) – LottoNL-Jumbo – 6.17.23hrs
2) Adam Yates (GBR) – Mitchelton-Scott +3”
3) Tiesj Benoot (BEL) – Lotto-Soudal +6”
4) Geraint Thomas (GBR) – Team Sky +7”
5) Rigoberto Uran (COL) – EF-Drapac +10”
6) Mikel Landa (ESP) – Movistar – ST
7) Gianni Moscon (ITA) – Team Sky
8) Romain Bardet (FRA) – Ag2r-La Mondiale
9) Wilco Kelderman (NED) – Team Sunweb
10) Bob Jungels (LUX) – QuickStep Floors

General classification

1) Geraint Thomas (GBR) – Team Sky – 10.52.22hrs
2) Greg van Avermaet (BEL) – BMC Racing – ST
3) Chris Froome (GBR) – Team Sky +3”
4) Damiano Caruso (ITA) – BMC Racing +8”
5) Michal Kwiatkowski (POL) – Team Sky +9”
6) Bob Jungels (LUX) – QuickStep Floors – ST
7) Wilco Kelderman (NED) – Team Sunweb +19”
8) Davide Formolo (ITA) – Bora-hansgrohe +30”
9) Tom Dumoulin (NED) – Team Sunweb +33”
10) Rigoberto Uran (COL) – Team EF-Drapac +39”