Ancona - Slovenia's cyclist Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won the Tirreno-Adriatico race, which goes from the western shores of Italy to the eastern coast, on Sunday for the second time in a row.

This is the 37th career victory for Pogačar, who recently kicked off his fourth season as a professional racer. So far, he has won all the three races of this season he competed in, including a multi-day race in the United Arab Emirates and the Strade Bianche race last weekend.

Pogačar, 23, started paving the way for the overall victory in Tirreno-Adriatico in the opening time trial, which he finished in third place.

The two-time winner of the Tour de France took the overall lead after the fourth stage. He then held on to this in the fifth stage, and on Saturday he already secured his repeated overall win with a convincing victory in the mountainous stage six.

Today's seventh and the last stage of the race of the two seas, as Tirreno-Adriatico is called, covered nearly 160 kilometres of flat terrain. Pogačar finished 33th as Germany's Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) sealed a stage win on the final stage in San Benedetto del Tronto.

Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) placed second overall and Spain's Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) was third.

"Today was fine, more relaxed than in the days before and above all warmer. We were a bit nervous at the end, but in the end everything worked out well for us. I really enjoyed the stage. I was focused until the very end because you never know what can happen. That's how you have to race every day. It's not over until you cross the finish line," Pogačar told the organisers after the race.

Another Slovenian competing in Tirreno-Adriatico 2022 was Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Victorious), who finished 87th overall.