Two podium results in Northern Italy

This year’s cycling season is approaching its end, and Team Bahrain Victorious has been competing in two one-day races in the North of Italy this week. Only two days after a 2nd place finish for Matej Mohoric at the Gran Piemonte race, Mikel Landa doubled up. The Basque rider showed a strong race at il Lombardia and scored a 3rd place at the last monument of the season.

A mere week ago a selection of riders of Team Bahrain Victorious had been involved in a close battle of the overall standings at the CRO Race. With Matej Mohoric, Damiano Caruso and Hermann Pernsteiner, three of the riders racing in Croatia took the trip to Northern Italy. There the Gran Piemonte one-day race was scheduled to be held on Thursday, and the line-up of the team was completed by the likes of Mikel Landa, Gino Mäder, Wout Poels and Edoardo Zambanini. While earlier editions of the Gran Piemonte clearly had been in favour of climbing specialists, this year’s race looked to have been designed for fast sprinters. But with 60 kilometres to go the day’s main obstacle was looming with the Pilonetto climb.

The riders in red, orange and black made good use of this climb to up the pace, forcing the peloton to break into several groups and pure sprinters to lose contact. On the mostly flat 44 kilometres to the finish, the group of about 30 riders up front, including no less than five riders of Team Bahrain Victorious, cooperated nicely to keep the dropped riders at a distance. As for the finale, Edoardo Zambanini took charge of leading out his teammate Matej Mohoric, and the latter only got beaten by Ivan Garcia Cortina in the sprint for the finish line. Adding to the 2nd place for Mohoric, Zambanini scored a very good 4th place. Thus, the main rehearsal for il Lombardia could be considered a full success.

For il Lombardia as the last monument of the cycling season, Matej Mohoric was the team’s designated captain. But the early breakaway was brought back with 71 kilometres to go, and the pace accelerated substantially from there, making Matej Mohoric lose contact on the Madonna del Ghisallo climb. The Slovene managed to get back to the front one more time to work one last shift for Team Bahrain Victorious. The best climber of the team on this day proved to be Mikel Landa. While the experienced Basque rider could not keep up with the attacks of Tadej Pogacar and Enric Mas, he masterfully paced his effort to reach the finish line in Como in 3rd, thus celebrating a podium and his best career result in one of cycling's monuments.      

116TH IL LOMBARDIA: BERGAMO - COMO, 253KM
1. Tadej Pogacar, SVN, in 6:21.22 hours
2. Enric Mas, ESP, st
3. Mikel Landa, ESP/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, + 0.10

106TH GRAN PIEMONTE: OMEGNA - BEINASCO, 198KM
1. Ivan Garcia Cortina, ESP, in 4:21.44 hours
2. Matej Mohoric, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, st
3. Alexis Vuillermoz, FRA, st