5th place in the Tour of the Apennines for Alessandro Verre
Tour of the Apennines, Alessandro Verre finishes 5th of the Italian race in a small sprint for 2nd place, Michel Ries who belonged to the same group, finishes 9th in Genoa. Nicolas Edet is 13th.
“Today, I was able to take part in the race, to attack, to be in the action in front, I felt a little bit better than on the Mercan’Tour, and the fact that I was able to do a lot of racing did me good. I finished 5th in the sprint, I admit that I was hoping a little bit, but I don’t have this quality of finisher. It’s good because I am fourth of our group of eight riders. Fortunately the crash I had was minor and I was very lucky. I came out of the last climb with Meintjes, I tried to attack him, to get him out of my wheel but he was very strong. After that, I waited, Michel, but the race was almost over with twenty flat kilometres in the final to Genova”
“It’s disappointing to have a flat part of 20 kilometres after all the bumps, because it shuffled the cards, of course. Alessandro and Michel were strong, but the final part allowed a group to get back. Meintjes played well, I had spotted this little “repecho” and told my riders to try it there, but they just didn’t have the legs. Afterwards, Alessandro, who crashed on the penultimate descent, and who had to give up a lot of energy to get back, finished 5th in the sprint for 2nd place. They had the role of leaders on this race, and Alessandro and Michel had carte blanche, the team worked. They knew how to go forward, to show an offensive state of mind and that they could be counted on, and this is a positive point”