CYCLING – BAHRAIN Victorious Development Team rider Jakob Omrzel narrowly missed out on the podium yesterday in the seventh and penultimate stage of the 48th Giro d’Italia Next Gen road race in Italy.
The Slovenian took fourth in the 163-kilometre leg and maintained his hold on the event’s white jersey for best young rider, with only the eighth and final stage remaining today.
Omrzel finished just over a minute-and-a-half behind winner Pavel Novak of MBH Bank Ballan CSB, who completed the day’s distance in four hours 27 minutes 29 seconds.
Omrzel’s Italian teammate Alessandro Borgo was the team’s second-best finisher in 54th place, while Irishman Seth Dunwoody came 71st. Bryan Olivo, also from Italy, was not far behind in 74th, and Finn Kasper Borremans was ranked 84th to complete the Bahrain Victorious Development Team’s roster.
With those results, Omrzel remained in contention for the overall race victory heading into today’s concluding leg, as he stayed in second place on the general classification – only 11 seconds behind leader Luke Tuckwell of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies. Omrzel also remained in firm hold of the white jersey, extending the gap from his closest challenger Adria Pericas of UAE Team Emirates Gen Z to a minute and 15 seconds.
Borremans was also in the top 10 in the best young rider rankings, but is more than 38 minutes adrift.
Furthermore, Omrzel stayed eighth in the King of the Mountains standings with 12 points, while in the points ranking, Dunwoody and Borgo were both amongst the best 10 in fifth and ninth, respectively.
This year’s Giro d’Italia Next Gen concludes today with the eighth and last leg, covering 127km.
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.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe yesterday, Briton Finaly Pickering was Team Bahrain Victorious’ best finisher in the seventh and penultimate stage of the 88th Tour de Suisse in Switzerland.
Pickering was also the team’s top-ranked rider in the GC in 15th place, while he climbed two spots to fifth on the race’s best young rider rankings, where is more than 11 minutes behind standings leader Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea-B&B Hotels.
This year’s eight-stage Tour de Suisse wraps up today with a 10km individual time trial. The elite men’s road race is part of the 2025 calendar of the UCI WorldTour.
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