| BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS TO TAKE ON THE GRAVEL ROADS OF STRADE BIANCHE |
The Italian WorldTour spring races are coming soon. The opener is the iconic Strade Bianche scheduled on Saturday, March 5th, with start and finish in the medieval Tuscan town of Siena.
|
| The essence of this race is embodied in its name: ‘Strade Bianche’ literally means ‘white roads’ in Italian, as the 184km route includes 11 sectors of gravel roads, for a total of 63km and representing 34.2% of the whole course. |
| The race is also known as “Europe’s most southern northern classic” due to the traditional unpaved and dust ancient farm tracks running through the stunning landscape of Tuscany hills on an undulating course, with punchy climbs. The final is fascinating and brutal, with the riders facing the legendary and steep Via Santa Cristina climb to arrive in the Piazza del Campo square, famous for the Palio horse event. |
Strade Bianche is the favourite race of a few of our riders, including our leaders Matej MohoriÄ at his fifth participation and Pello Bilbao, who started last year for the first time. The Spaniard was 10th and immediately showed a good feeling with the challenging course, which usually fits the climbers and riders at ease when it comes to being skilled in riding the bike on unpaved terrain, like former mountain bike racers or cyclocross specialists, as Heinrich Haussler is. The Australian participated in this event only once. He was at the start of the second edition of the race back in 2008 when the name was “Eroica” but stopped at the feed zone after three flat tyres: “Apart from that year, then I’ve never ridden Strade Bianche, mainly because it didn’t fit it in the program. I’m super excited to do it this year because it is very similar to the Classic racing style, with unpaved roads and cyclocross gravel. I’m looking forward to that: we can rely on great equipment, so we have only to be focused on our performance and race strategies. I must admit I have no idea what to expect. Obviously, race has changed completely over the last fourteen years. I’ll be there to help our guys, Pello and Matej, to keep position because the final is super hard, with that punchy climb at 500m to go”.
|
| A rider of our team still has to write his name in the roll of honour of this race that is only at his 16th edition but already is built up like a Monument. |
| Gorazd Stangelj, Team Bahrain Victorious Sports Director: “We will aim to show our potential as a team, trying to take the best result as possible. Our leaders, Bilbao and MohoriÄ, not only have the right skills to perform well in this kind of race, but I have to say they really enjoy riding it. They started this season by putting on strong rides and having good shape. Pello is coming from a good third place in GC he took recently at UAE Tour. The teammates who support them – Tratnik, Haussler and Pernsteiner – equally have a good feeling with this kind of route. Especially in the first part of the race, they can also take advantage of the work of our two young climbers, Edoardo Zambanini and Alejandro Osorio, both at their first appearance at Strade Bianche. The crucial sector Monte S. Marie starts at 43 km to go but to achieve a good result on such a race, besides good legs you also need right positioning and the support of the team always play a key role. If windy and wet, the weather conditions can make the race even harder”. |
|
