Caruso finishes Giro d’Italia in 2nd

After three weeks of cycling Damiano Caruso gets to celebrate the greatest success of his long career. The experienced rider of Team Bahrain Victorious finished the Giro d’Italia in 2nd place overall. Meanwhile Sonny Colbrelli booked the same result in the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné: The Italian won the sprint of the peloton by a large margin, but the stage win went to a rider from the early breakaway.

The conclusive stage of the Giro d'Italia was a mostly flat individual time trial in Milano. While the positions 4 to 8 in the overall standings were close and fiercely contested, the margins between the contenders for the overall podium were significantly bigger: Damiano Caruso as the 2nd placed rider trailed Egan Bernal by 1.59 minutes and at the same time had a buffer of 1.24 minutes to Simon Yates. While Pello Bilbao did not go all out after yesterday's enormous effort in support of his team captain, Damiano Caruso dug deep one more time. And indeed he posted the fastest time of the three podium contenders. He went 30 seconds faster than Egan Bernal and even 1.22 minutes faster than Simon Yates, consolidating his grip on 2nd place in the overall standings. Finishing the Giro d'Italia on the podium is the biggest result in Damiano Caruso's long career.

As for the conclusive time trial Team Bahrain Victorious again had a rider finishing in the top10 with Jan Tratnik who only lost 42 seconds to stage winner Filippo Ganna in 8th place. With this result the riders in red and black showed their consistency on a high level one last time in this race. This Giro counted a total of nine mountain stages, with Team Bahrain Victorious only missing out on a top10 result once and winning two of these stages with Gino Mäder and Damiano Caruso. Add to this two more top3 results with Jan Tratnik's amazing 2nd place atop Monte Zoncolan and Damiano Caruso's 3rd place in the Queen's stage at Cortina d'Ampezzo. This and the 2nd place in the overall standings are a great haul for a team that was down to five riders for the last nine stages.

As for the 73rd edition of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Team Bahrain Victorious has fielded a team built around Sonny Colbrelli as the sprinter and Dylan Teuns and Jack Haig as the riders for the mountain stages and the overall standings. These three riders canrely on the support of Santiago Buitrago, Eros Capecchi, Marco Haller and Mark Padun. The opening stage featured some hills in the finale. Early on in the stage four riders had attacked, and Belgian Brent Van Moer went on to win the stage after a late attack from this breakaway. Thus the peloton only got to sprint for 2nd place, and Sonny Colbrelli showed that he's in excellent form: The Italian chose the right moment to accelerate from the rear wheel of his team mate to secure 2nd place by multiple bike lengths.

104TH GIRO D’ITALIA: FINAL OVERALL STANDINGS
1. Egan Bernal, COL, in 86:17.28 hours
2. Damiano Caruso, ITA/TEAM BAHRAIN VICOTRIOUS, + 1.29
3. Simon Yates, GBR, + 4.15 

73RD CRITÉRIUM DU DAUPHINÉ, STAGE 1: ISSOIRE - ISSOIRE, 181.8KM
1. Brent Van Moer, BEL, in 4:13.00 hours
2. Sonny Colbrelli, ITA/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, + 0.25
3. Clément Venturini, FRA, st