Five moments from the 2019 season of the Kometa Cycling Team
A cycling season is a lot of fun. Trips, races, rallies, get-togethers, experiences… The second experience campaign of the continental project of the Alberto Contador Foundation has not been an exception to such an intense day-to-day, something intrinsic to this sport. Many good moments, some bad, but above all a lot of dedication and a lot of commitment in this common passion for the bicycle. Not all of them are here, not even the most outstanding, but they are five moments of this second adventure in the professional field. Five moments inside the Kometa Cycling Team.
1. A ‘Grande Partenza’.
The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2019 started with a 10.2 kilometre time trial in Orihuela, Alicante, and by chance the first cyclist to take the start in this edition was a rider of the Kometa Cycling Team. Pure symbolism. The Italian Stefano Oldani had that honour. The Lombard finished 120th, 1:20 behind the winner (the Norwegian Dimension Data Edvald Boasson-Hagen), giving the first pedals of a very outstanding campaign in which he only needed to add a very chased victory and, thanks to its versatility, caressed on several occasions. Even the bad luck deprived him to postulate with firmness to the same one, as in a vertiginous first stage of the Vuelta a Aragón in which an inopportune puncture took him out of the leading group of twenty units that the victory was played.
2. Three men in the Kekesteto´s battle.
The Kometa Cycling Team had one of its best performances of the season in the Tour of Hungary. The Magyar cycling round, one of the great commitments of the year for the commercial interests of the sponsors in the country, changed dates and was ahead of the month of June, proposed a harder route than the previous year and also grew in a stage. The formation had a lot of presence in the race, did not hesitate to take the reins of the development of several stages and deployed an invaluable collective work for the common good. The queen stage was the zenith, with Márton Dina, Juan Pedro López and Stefano Oldani integrated in the fight for the race. Main actors before more experienced runners or structures of superior category. Without complexes. López tried it from afar. Dina also emptied herself to rush the options of partial success. In the general would finish second, being the first Hungarian of the same.
3. About inopportune crash and casualties.
They are part of the development of this sport, a risk that is there and is inherent in the very nature of the bicycle. In February, after an exciting first stage, Italian sprinter Michele Gazzoli suffered a mishap at the arrival of the third stage of the Tour of Antalya, where he broke his left collarbone. The rider from Brescia had to go through the operating room. A fall that lasted all his season. Identical fortune, but with better luck, lived the Luxembourger Michel Ries. The rider of the Grand Duchy, after a formidable Giro de Sicilia, suffered a serious fall in the descent of the Santuario del Acebo, during the second stage of the Vuelta a Asturias. A broken shoulder blade and two cracked ribs were the main damages of an accident whose aftermath left him a month off the roads and made him miss the Vuelta a Hungría.
4. Protagonists without complexes.
In the notorious Vuelta a Burgos or in the reborn Giro de Sicilia the Kometa Cycling Team was one of the most important formations. In the Castilian race, the Madrid team sought every day to be part of the good breakaway, something they achieved. In Italy, an event in which the route was a challenge, even with the presence of a stage of more than 235 kilometres, cyclists also managed to be part of escapes. Isaac Cantón wore the pistachio jersey of the mountain. And in the fight for the general Michel Ries was one of the great protagonists of the fight in the final climb to Etna, where the race would be resolved. That ambition, that lack of complexes against more powerful teams or more veteran runners, that interest in raising battle or having presence in the race has been a constant and has also brought intense moments in other events such as Vuelta a Asturias, Vuelta a Aragón or Getxo Circuit.
5. The victories.
They are not an obsession within the Kometa Cycling Team and even less so after the surprising and unexpected booty that the 2018 campaign brought with it the great results signed at the time by the speed of Matteo Moschetti, but victories are always welcome. In 2019 the Madrid team with an Italian soul has won two races, both in the Giro del Valle d’Aosta and both in stages with a high finish. Luxembourger Michel Ries took the first one. The following day, it was the Spaniard Juan Pedro López. Two victories that came to reward the insistence and the regularity of the riders of the team during a season in which the 50 top-ten and the twenty top-five were caressed. The successes were slow in coming, but they were caressed on several occasions. The first one, especially with Juan Pedro López in the queen stage of the Vuelta a Antalya, but also with Stefano Oldani in the Istrian Spring Trophy or the Italian Antonio Puppio in the opening day of the Vuelta a Aragón.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
