CYCLING – BAHRAIN Victorious Development Team rider Jakob Omrzel stepped onto the podium yesterday in the fifth stage of the 48th Giro d’Italia Next Gen road race in Italy.
The Slovenian finished the 153-kilometre leg in third place, trailing only winner Adam Rafferty of Hagens Berman Jayco and runner-up Filippo Turconi of VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane.
Rafferty triumphed in three hours 29 minutes and nine seconds, while Turconi and Omrzel were part of a group that was classified eight seconds behind.
Amongst the other Bahrain Victorious Development Team members, Italian Alessandro Borgo was 65th, his countryman Bryan Olivo came 73rd, Finn Kasper Borremans was 74th, and Irishman Seth Dunwoody, who won the fourth stage on Wednesday, came 138th.
Following yesterday’s result, Omrzel put himself in contention for the overall race victory after climbing five places to second on the general classification (GC), where he is only 26 seconds behind leader Luke Tuckwell of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies.
Omrzel also took over as the leader in the best young rider rankings, where he is more than one minute ahead of the rest of the field, and improved one spot to eighth on the King of the Mountains standings, which is currently paced by Jarno Widar of Lotto Development Team. Dunwoody remained third in the points rankings.
Held over eight stages, this year’s Giro d’Italia Next Gen continues today with the sixth leg, covering 154km.
The event, also known as ‘Baby Giro’, is an amateur road race that is one of the most important and formative events on the under-23 international cycling calendar.
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