CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious rider Lenny Martinez continued his impressive showing in the 84th Paris-Nice race in France yesterday, narrowly missing out on the podium in the fifth stage.
The Frenchman finished fourth but could have been in the top three in a furious sprint finish where he crossed the line with a group of several other riders.
Martinez completed the 206.3-kilometre leg, starting from Cormoranche-sur-Saone and ending at Colombier-le-Vieux, two minutes and 20 seconds behind winner Jonas Vingegaard of Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Valentin Paret-Peintre of Soudal Quick-Step was the runner-up while Harold Tejada of XDS Astana Team came third.
Both Tejada and Martinez were amongst eight riders classified with the same finishing time.
Amongst Bahrain Victorious’s other riders yesterday, Damiano Caruso was 26th, Kamil Gradek came 73rd, Nikias Arndt was 87th, and Phil Bauhaus finished 127th.
With the stage five result, Martinez rose one more spot to fifth in the general classification (GC), where he is seven-and-a-half minutes behind overall leader Vingegaard. He also remained third in the best young rider rankings, just under two minutes from top man Georg Steinhauser of EF Education-EasyPost. He also rose 14 places to 14th in the points classification.
The Bahrain Victorious crew, meanwhile, climbed five spots to 12th on the race’s teams’ ranking heading into the concluding three stages.
Meanwhile, also yesterday in Europe, Santiago Buitrago was the best-ranked competitor for Bahrain Victorious in the fourth stage of the 61st Tirreno-Adriatico event in Italy.
Teammate Antonio Tiberi dropped four spots on the GC to 10th as the squad’s best-placed rider, but he stayed fourth in the youth classification, 49 seconds from Giulio Pellizzari of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe in first place.
Bahrain Victorious dropped one position to fourth in the teams’ standings with three stages to go.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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