CYCLING – Pello Bilbao put in a valiant effort to claim a place in the top 20 yesterday in the second stage of the 65th Itzulia Basque Country in Spain.
Bilbao ranked a strong 18th overall following a tough 164.1-kilometre leg, which featured over 3,000 metres of climbing.
Competing in his home race, the Spaniard was just over two-and-a-half minutes behind stage winner Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM Team, who triumphed for the second straight day with a time of four hours 11 minutes and 48 seconds.
Bilbao’s Italian teammate Antonio Tiberi was Bahrain Victorious’s second-best finisher in 87th yesterday, followed by Slovenian Roman Ermakov and Briton Oliver Stockwell in 103rd and 104th, respectively.
Hungarian Attila Valter finished 107th for the squad, while Italian Alberto Bruttomesso was 121st and Austrian Rainer Kepplinger was 134th to wrap up the team’s line-up of competitors.
With yesterday’s results, Bilbao climbed four places to 13th on the six-stage race’s general classification (GC), where he is just over three-and-a-half minutes from Seixas.
Ermakov, meanwhile, stayed 15th in the best young rider rankings.
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 GC.
The race continues today with the third stage, set to cover 152.8km and starting and finishing in the municipality of Basauri.
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