The Colombians from Team Polti Kometa in the top-10 in Tour du Rwanda’s “ascending time trial”

Thirteen kilometers, in a slight but steady uphill, completed in 24 minutes and 21 seconds. This is the time that allowed Jhonatan Restrepo to place sixth in the ITT from Musanze to Kwita Izina, fifth stage of the Tour du Rwanda won by Frenchman Pierre Latour. Now Restrepo is 5th in the GC, just 16 seconds behind the new leader William Lecerf: tomorrow there’s the decisive climb of Mount Kigali. German Gomez also did well, finishing tenth today: he’s 8th overall, 44 seconds behind Lecerf.

“The GC are tight and anything can happen, plus we’re second in the team classification” says sports director Biagio Conte. “I’m very pleased with the boys’ performance and with the correct choice of bringing only road bikes and not ITT ones. Even Jhonatan was turning like the best at the split! Tomorrow there’s a nice uphill finish but the last two days will also be tough, we have to keep going like this to achieve the best possible result.”

Here are the words of the two top-10 Polti Kometa Colombians.
Restrepo: “Considering that it was effectively a hill climb time trial, I kept a more than satisfactory pace and tomorrow we’re back to a type of race that suits me much better. And with a wild card like German, we’ll try to stir things up and take advantage of every situation. Every day we spend at high altitude, the better for us…”
Gomez: “Today I had further proof of my growing condition, now challenging and explosive days await us in which we’ll have to work not only with our legs but with our heads. Keeping a cool head to manage the race and move up the standings.”