 Tour de Pologne - Bonifazio wins 3rd stage [15-07-16 08:37 by staff GoNBike.com] | ||
MEDIA RELEASE: NICCOLO BONIFAZIO'S LONGEST DAY Fernando Gaviria hangs on to the yellow jersey after a long, difficult stage 14 July, 2016 - Today the Tour de Pologne moved into the third stage, the longest one in this 73rd edition, covering an impressive 240 km from Zawiercie to Nowy Sacz. In the first two stages, riders from Etixx – Quick-Step came in first with Davide Martinelli and Fernando Gaviria, who started out this morning wearing the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification. The long distance and arduous route could have been the perfect terrain for the attackers in the pack. In fact, from the very first kilometres there were several different attacks. The most important break of the day was spurred on by the Polish rider Kamil Gradek, who also won the first intermediate sprint in Wadowice, birthplace of Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II). He was accompanied by his fellow countrymen Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz (Polish National Team) and Lukasz Owsian (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), by Slovenian Matej Mohoric (Lampre Merida) and by Russian Ivan Savitskiy (Gazprom-Rusvelo). They gained a maximum advantage of almost 6’. The group controlled the race effortlessly, but between km 70 and km 56 there were two major falls, which affected several athletes. Spaniard Rafael Ferri Valls (Lotto-Soudal) and Latvian Aleksejs Saromotins were not able to continue the race. In the second fall even the leader of the GC Fernando Gaviria had to put his foot to the ground, but he managed to take off again in spite of a few scrapes. In the last 25 km the race started heating up; the day’s fugitives got reeled in but another group of indomitable riders tried to foil the sprinters’ plans. The forcing performed by the teams supporting their jet men managed to tighten up the group and everything came down to the final sprint, like in the first two fractions. With a perfect final sprint Nicollo Bonifazio captured the stage on the finish line in Nowy Sacz. This is the first victory in a World Tour race for the rider from Trek-Segrafredo, after he took two second places at the Tour de Romandie and the Paris-Nice. Fernando Gaviria holds on to the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, with a 6” advantage over the winner of today’s stage. Davide Cassani, the coach of Italian National Team, was present at the race yesterday and today to follow the Italian riders at the Tour de Pologne, in advance of the Olympic Games. “Today was a gruelling day. It was the longest stage, with a seriously challenging height difference," declared Bonifazio. "In truth, I like stages like this one because I manage to hang in there quite well on the climbs. When I saw that Gaviria was still there in the lead group I decided to stick to his wheel to move on him in the final sprint. I earned this victory but so did the entire team, which worked incredibly hard to keep me ahead. I’d especially like to thank Fabio Felline. This year I’ve come close to success on several occasions but now finally the day of victory has come.” “It was a difficult stage and I’m glad I managed to hang on to the yellow jersey," declared Gaviria. "If I was successful in doing so I have to thank all my team mates for the fantastic job they did. The distance and altitude change were really challenging today, plus, I got stuck in a pileup and the final was a continuous succession of breaks and attacks. It’s too bad because we managed to make it to the final sprint but unfortunately today things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. I ended up exposed too soon and I couldn’t block Bonifazio’s comeback. Now we can expect some very challenging days ahead, but for now we’re enjoying one more day in the yellow jersey.” Kamil Gradek (Verva ActiveJet) conquered the Tauron cyclamen jersey for best climber and his teammate Jonas Koch holds onto the Lotto blue jersey as the most active rider in the group. Moreno Hofland (LottoNL-Jumbo) is the new Hyundai white jersey of the sprinter classification. Team Sky still leads the Team classification. ::Tour de Pologne - Press Release:: | ||
 Archivio  Cerca  Più recenti  Stampa | ||
 Notizia precedenteTour de Pologne - Gaviria wins 2nd stage | Notizia successiva  Tour de Pologne - Wellens wind stage 5 | |