Sprint win for Sonny Colbrelli at Gran Piemonte

The road World championships may be done and dusted, but the cycling season is far from over. Sonny Colbrelli sprinted to an undisputed win at the Gran Piemonte one-day race, topping off a week where the riders of the BAHRAIN MERIDA PRO CYCLING TEAM scored one top10 finish after the other in Italy and Turkey.

At Innsbruck’s road World championships the riders of the BAHRAIN MERIDA PRO CYCLING TEAM missed out on the medals: Mark Padun got the best result, finishing the under23 race in 5th place after having been involved in multiple attacks in the finale. There was not a lot of time to recover after the Worlds as a series of one-day races in Italy was on the calendar soon after. As for these races, Sonny Colbrelli delivered an exploit at the rainy Gran Piemonte race. At first, his team mates kept all attacks in close checks and within reach of the peloton, and they were unfazed by a crash in the finale as well. The last two kilometers saw a number of late attacks, and Kristijan Koren had to dig deep to keep his captain in contention and close to the front. Launching his sprint from Koren’s wheel and from far, Sonny Colbrelli had no problems to leave his rivals behind and scoring his fourth personal win of the season - the 26th win for the team.

Throughout the week before the riders of the BAHRAIN MERIDA PRO CYCLING TEAM had been racing aggressively at various one-day races. As for the Giro dell’Emilia the team was starting with fond memories after a spectacular one-two the year before. Matej Mohoric displayed his amazing bike handling skills on the wet descents, closing gaps repeatedly before running out of steam in the cold and wet conditions. With Vincenzo Nibali in 8th and Domenico Pozzovivo in 9th the team still got two of its riders into the top10. At the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli, the peloton only sprinted for 2nd place behind solo winner Bauke Mollema, and Sonny Colbrelli got boxed in, crossing the finish line in 13th. Giovanni Visconti fared slightly better at the Tre Valli Varesine, finishing in 9th after having been in the day’s lead group for a long time, and Domenico Pozzovivo finished the Milano-Torino one-day race in 7th, adding another top10 result for the team.

At the same time, the BAHRAIN MERIDA PRO CYCLING TEAM is competing at the Tour of Turkey, fielding riders such as Grega Bole, Ivan Garcia Cortina, Heinrich Haussler, Ramunas Navardauskas, Domen Novak, Mark Padun and David Per. The first three stages all ended in a bunch sprint. After one of the leading riders almost had crashed in the last right-hand corner the sprint at the end of the first stage was messy, seeing Navardauskas crossing the line in 13th and Garcia Cortina following in 17th. On the next day, Ivan Garcia Cortina followed the right wheels in the finale and finished in 5th. He confirmed this performance with a 6th place in the bunch sprint into Marmaris at the end of the third stage.

102ND GRAN PIEMONTE: RACCONICI - STUPINIGI, 191KM
1. Sonny Colbrelli, ITA/BAHRAIN MERIDA PRO CYCLING TEAM, in 4:20.50 hours
2. Florian Sénéchal, FRA, st
3. Davide Ballerini, ITA, st