The 2010 Tirreno–Adriatico was the 45th running of the Tirreno–Adriatico stage race. It started on 10 March and finished on 16 March. The race started in Livorno and ended San Benedetto del Tronto. The race was won by Stefano Garzelli after gaining 2 seconds in intermediate sprints in the last stage which tied him for first with Michele Scarponi; Garzelli held the tiebreaker, combined stage finishes.
Teams
Twenty-two teams started the race. These included sixteen UCI ProTour teams, including the provisionally-licensed , and six UCI Professional Continental teams. These teams, along with three others, also contested Milan–San Remo.
The 22 teams participating in the race were:
Stages
Stage 1
10 March 2010 – Livorno to Rosignano Solvay,
The race of two seas began with a mostly flat stage from Livorno on the Tyrrhenian coast to Rosignano Solvay. The riders took a finishing circuit in the arrival town, seeing the finish line twice.
A lone rider from comprised this stage's major breakaway. Dmytro Grabovskyy slipped away early and quickly built an advantage of over five minutes. The peloton, battered by the freezing rain that almost kept the stage from being run at all, was content to let him stay away until the to go mark, when the and teams set to bringing him back in the hopes of setting up a potential mass sprint finish for their top sprinters Daniele Bennati and Tyler Farrar.
Grabovskyy was caught with left to race, and 's Pablo Urtasun took the opportunity to counter-attack, being joined after a short while by Niki Terpstra from . They were away until the to go mark, and another move took shape when they were caught, including Terpstra's team leader Linus Gerdemann and Matti Breschel. Despite never holding even ten seconds advantage over the main field, and not having an appreciable gap over them at the finish line, they were able to contest the stage among themselves and deny the pure sprinters the chance. Gerdemann came around Pablo Lastras' early leadout to take the stage win and the first blue jersey as race leader. With the time bonus at the finish line, he became the first leader of the race with a four-second advantage over Lastras. Gerdemann was also awarded the red jersey as points classification leader; Lastras wore it during stage two.
Stage 2
11 March 2010 – Montecatini Terme,
Stage two contained a categorized climb after just , but following the descent from that climb the course was a plateau with no further raises in elevation of any consequence. The stage started and ended in the same town, and concluded with a 5-lap circuit with repeated visits to a short hill.
Four riders again tried their luck to contest the stage win among themselves in a breakaway, but on this day the sprinters would not be denied. The four were Mikhail Ignatiev, Diego Caccia, Alan Pérez, and Alan Marangoni, who escaped into the stage. They built up an advantage of over four minutes, while race leader Linus Gerdemann's Milram team rode a tempo at the front of the peloton. Various teams representing strong sprinters worked to reel in the escape toward the end of the stage, and three of them were caught from the finish line. Ignatiev tried to counter-attack as the catch occurred, but the blazing speed with which was driving the peloton at the time meant that it was only a few seconds until the Russian too was brought back. Liquigas–Doimo led out the sprint in the final kilometer, but their top sprinter Daniele Bennati was unable to take advantage. Belgian national champion Tom Boonen began his sprint first, but was able to hold on to the finish line for the win. The win, and the time bonus it afforded, left Boonen tied with Gerdemann on time in the general classification.
Stage 3
12 March 2010 – San Miniato to Monsummano Terme,
Stage 3 was the last in Tuscany. This course had two categorized climbs in the final before the peloton reaches Monsummano Terme. There were three uncategorized rises in elevation before that point, and a lengthy flat stretch to the finish.