Matevz Govekar wins stage in England

In the conclusive stage of the Tour of Britain, Matevz Govekar finished a long drought by scoring the 11th win of the season for Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS. Meanwhile, Nikias Arndt had to settle for 17th place at the Bemer Cyclassics in Hamburg, and the Vuelta a España turned into a major disappointment after a promising start.

For the first time ever Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS decided to compete at the Tour of Britain. This year's race started with three hilly, classics-like stages followed by three stages made for sprinters. The team's GC captain was Pello Bilbao, with the vastly experienced Wout Poels acting as road captain. While Edoardo Zambanini was free to chase his own ambitions in the more demanding stages, Matevz Govekar, as the team's sprinter, could rely on the support of Nicolo Buratti and stagiaire Vlad van Mechelen. Despite its demanding profile, the opening stage ended in a sprint of a group of about 60 riders, with Zambanini finishing in 7th and Govekar in 8th, respectively. The next day, the riders of the team missed out on the decisive attack in the finale, so Govekar could only add a 10th place to his tally.

In the finale of stage 3 into Barnsley, Edoardo Zambanini accelerated early on the final ascending kilometre and took the lead. But on the last 200 meters, two riders caught back up to him and went past him, so he crossed the finish line in 3rd place. As expected, the next two stages came down to bunch sprints, with Matevz Govekar finishing in 5th and 4th, respectively. As for the conclusive stage, Pello Bilbao joined forces with Tom Pidcock and two more riders to go on the attack. But this move was brought back well in time, so a group of about 40 riders were getting ready to sprint in the roads of Felixstowe. This time, Matevz Govekar timed his effort perfectly and managed to win the stage. This victory moved him up to 3rd in the points classification, while Edoardo Zambanini finished the Tour of Britain in 7th on GC.

Things did not go to plan for Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS at the Vuelta a España as the third Grand Tour of the season. In the beginning, GC captain Antonio Tiberi seemed to be in good form: the young Italian was leading in the young riders classification, kept himself in the top5 on GC and finished in 4th at the mountaintop finish of Cazorla. Just one day later, however ,Tiberi was suffering so badly from the heat in the South of Spain that he was forced to abandon on the stage before the first rest day. On the same day Rainer Kepplinger also called it quits while Damiano Caruso had already not taken the start to stage 7 due to health issues. As the next two weeks were going to show, the team found no way to recover from these losses, as the remaining five riders missed out on any top 10 results. At least Fran Miholjevic made it into breakaways four times, showing some fighting spirit.

Held in and around Hamburg, the one-day race Bemer Cyclassic often comes down to a bunch sprint. For this reason, Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS brought a strong lead-out train for Phil Bauhaus to the race. Apart from Fred Wright, who was free to chase his own chances, the rest of the line-up consisting of Yukiya Arashiro, Nikias Arndt, Alberto Bruttomesso, Robert Stannard and Lukas Wisniowski was riding in support of Bauhaus, either as a lead-out or to keep the race under control early on. Unfortunately, Phil Bauhaus got dropped by the peloton in the finale so the team was forced to improvise. Nikias Arndt tried his hand at the bunch sprint but could not make it into a promising position and ended up crossing the finish line in 17th place. 

20TH TOUR OF BRITAIN:
STAGE 6: LOWESTOFT - FELIXSTOWE, 158.4KM
1. Matevz Govekar, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, in 3:22.18 hours
2. Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen, DEN, st
3. Ben Swift, GBR, st

STAGE 3: SHEFFIELD - BARNSLEY, 166KM
1. Stephen Williams, GBR, in 3:50.03 hours
2. Paul Magnier, FRA, st
3. Edoardo Zambanini, ITA/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, st

Photos: Sprint Cycling Agency