CYCLING – PELLO Bilbao was Team Bahrain Victorious’s top performer yesterday in the opening stage of the 65th Itzulia Basque Country in Spain.
Bilbao ranked a solid 16th in the first leg of his six-stage home race, which featured a 13.8-kilometre individual time trial that was held in the city of Bilbao.
The Spaniard finished 53 seconds off the pace of stage winner Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM Team, who posted a time of 17 minutes and nine seconds.
Italian Antonio Tiberi was Bahrain Victorious’s second-best finisher in 48th, a minute and 24 seconds from Seixas.
Austrian Rainer Kepplinger (+1:48) was classified 76th, Slovenian Roman Ermakov (+2:10) was 101st, Hungarian Attila Valter (+2:24) finished 117th, Briton Oliver Stockwell (+2:50) was 136th, and Italian Alberto Bruttomesso (+3:23) came 144th to wrap up the team’s riders.
The peloton will cover a total of 810.1km from Bilbao to Bergara in this year’s Itzulia Basque Country, tackling a total of 16,404m of climbing. While each stage presents its own challenges, stage five – the queen stage – will be decisive in Eibar, with 4,079m of elevation and three category one climbs, likely proving pivotal in the general classification.
Each leg is within 80km of Bilbao’s home of Biscay, where three of the event’s stages will take place.
Today’s second stage is set to cover 164.9km.
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