CYCLING – Team Bahrain Victorious enjoyed strong results yesterday in a pair of prestigious elite men’s road races in Europe.
Antonio Tiberi narrowly missed out on the podium in the first stage of the 60th Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy, while Matevz Govekar claimed a place in the top 10 in the second stage of the 83rd Paris-Nice event in France.
Both events are part of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s World Tour calendar for 2025.
In Italy, Tiberi secured fourth place in the opening individual time trial (ITT) of the Tirreno-Adriatico.
Competing in his home race, Tiberi completed the 11.5-kilometre challenge, held at Lido di Camaiore, 28.08 seconds behind ITT winner Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers team.
Spaniard Pello Bilbao was the second-best Bahrain Victorious rider on the stage classification. He was 53.87s behind Ganna. Damiano Caruso, another Italian rider, ranked third for the team in 41st place overall, going one minute 03.18 seconds off the winning pace.
Completing the ITT rankings amongst Bahrain Victorious’ riders were Australian Robert Stannard (+1:18.44) in 80th, Croatian Fran Miholjevic (+1:32.70) in 113th, Italian Andrea Pasqualon (+1:36.50) in 118th, and Portuguese Afono Eulalio (+2:06.75) in 161st.
On the general classification (GC) for the yellow jersey as well as on the points rankings for the green jersey, Tiberi ranked fourth. He was also second in the best young rider rankings for the white jersey, behind only Juan Ayuso of UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
This year’s Tirreno-Adriatico features seven stages with 1,147.5km in total. Action continues today starting from Camaiore and ending in Follonica, covering a 192km distance.
Meanwhile, in France yesterday, Govekar completed the 183.9-kilometre second leg of the Paris-Nice race, which started in Montesson and ended in Bellegarde, in eighth place overall.
The Slovenian was part of the bunch sprint to the finish, which was led by stage winner Tim Merlier.
Govekar’s French teammate Lenny Martinez and Italian Edoardo Zambanini were 33rd and 34th, respectively, while Australian Jack Haig and Colombian Santiago Buitrago were classified 54th and 55th.
Briton Fred Wright in 120th and Pole Kamil Gradek in 130th completed the Bahrain Victorious contingent.
With yesterday’s stage results, Govekar climbed six places to 18th on the GC for the yellow jersey after two legs so far. Zambanini improved nine spots to 30th, while Haig rose 17 places to 61st.
In the battle for the white jersey, both Govekar and Zambanini were in the top 10. Govekar went up four places to fourth, while Zambanini climbed six spots to eighth. They are just four seconds behind leader Mick Van Dijke of the Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe squad.
In the teams’ classification, Bahrain Victorious dropped one place to fourth, while XDS Astana Team stayed in first.
The Paris-Nice meet continues today with a team time trial covering 28.4 kilometres, starting from Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours and ending in Nevers.
The event is often referred to as ‘The Race to the Sun’. It features eight stages in all, covering 1,212.6 kilometres in total.
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