Crikvenica (Croatia), October 4th – Team Bahrain Merida took again a top result at six-day stage race CRO Race. Today it was up to Heinrich Haussler to celebrate a good third place after a four-man sprint at stage 4 (Starigrad-Crikvenica, 159km).

“It was a very technical finale and there were also some crashes” the Australian rider commented “I was in a good position in the last km and I tried to do the sprint, taking third. I would like to have done better, but it’s ok. All in all, it was a good stage and also the weather was better than the last three days. As a team we worked well, controlling the breakaway and we tried also to set up an attack with Jan on the last climb with 7km to go”.

In fact, TBM riders were very active in the finale, especially Jan Tratnik, who attacked several times. In the end, he was caught with only 1km to go. “On paper today’s stage finish suited sprinters and I knew it was not my favourite. But there was a climb before the sprint, therefore I decided to try to attack and I succeeded. We were in three and it seemed we could manage to do it, but unfortunately with 1 km to go the group caught us. I’m satisfied, anyway.

Dusan Rajovic (ADR) took the win on stage 4, ahead of Simion (BRD) 2nd and Haussler 3rd. Gidich (AST) is still the GC leader. Unfortunately, Grega Bole couldn’t defend his third place overall, but CRO Race continues tomorrow with the hardest stage of the week - including summit finish atop Platak – and more changes to General Classification are expected.

(All pictures can be used for editorial and non commercial usages only and are copyright @Bettiniphoto @Team Bahrain Merida)