Márton Dina’s combativeness is worth a mountain lead
44º Tour of the Alps
Stage 4: Naturno / Naturns – Pieve di Bono (168,6 km)
The longest and most demanding day of this Tour of the Alps brought another great group performance for EOLO-KOMETA in which two names stood out: Márton Dina and Edward Ravasi. The Hungarian, a fighter and persistent, got his way and managed to catch the good breakaway of the day after several attempts, a breakaway from which he catapulted on the Campo Carlo Magno to cross its summit first and score some valuable points that make him the new leader of the mountains. The Italian, for his part, the team’s trump card for a good overall, rode a great climb to Boniprati and finished the stage in 19th place at 2’19”.
Dina had a clear objective and never gave up. After initially trying it out with seven other riders, his move was neutralised by the peloton. On the non-scoring climb to the Passo Castrin, a new movement was formed around the figure of Briton Chris Froome and Dina himself. Nine riders finally opened up a lead that never exceeded three minutes. The nine collaborated well, but there was a lot of interest behind them. Their adventure came to an end on the last climb of the day, Boniprati.
On this climb, where Team Ineos selected a lot of the race, leader Simon Yates and Russian Alexander Vlasov stood out at the front. On the descent, stage win for him, they would be caught by Pello Bilbao. Further back, Edward Ravasi, who rode a great climb at his own pace and managed the difficult descent exceptionally well to finish this penultimate stage of the Tour of the Alps in the top-20. Ravasi jumps eight places in the overall standings to 27th, one place ahead of teammate Erik Fetter.
The Tour of the Alps 2021 closes this Friday with a stage of almost 121 that will connect the Idroland facilities, next to Lake Idro, with the town of Riva del Garda, where a circuit will be tackled in which the ascent to Lago di Tenno (8.5 km at 6.2%) will have to be tackled twice. The last one is crowned twelve kilometres from the finish. Previously the cyclists will have had to overcome other orographic difficulties, the Passo Duron (6.4 km, at 7.9%) being the most important and the only one that counts towards the Grand Prix of the Mountains.
Marton Dina: “I’m too happy, I’m delighted. I’m not surprised because that was my goal for the day and catching that breakaway was really hard. Then, on the KOM there was Chris Froome who tried to take points away from me because he wanted to defend the blue jersey of his teammate De Marchi but I beat him and immediately afterwards he congratulated me. It was great and now I’ll do everything I can to defend it tomorrow”.
Edward Ravasi: “I’m happy, after yesterday it’s a good performance because I had been in a breakaway and had spent a lot of energy. But even yesterday I felt that I was recovering well, that my condition is growing more and more: I’m happy, I’m very close to stay with the best. If you look at today’s classification, there are all the best in the world, and to be in the top twenty is great for me. I know I can still improve, tomorrow is another day and I want to finish this race in the best possible way”.
[ PhotoGomezSport]
