Towards Lari: a young race with an attractive profile in the context of the Festival of Cherries and Pisan Hills
III GP Lari – Città delle Ciliegia
28th May: Perignano – Lari (162 km)
The competition in the Italian calendar for the U23 squad of the Contador Foundation returns this Saturday with a one-day race of recent origin, demanding route and interesting location in the year, a few weeks before the start of the Giro d’Italia U23. The Gran Premio Lari awaits the boys in blue with a very attractive profile where riders with good climbing skills will surely shine.
Edoardo Alleva, Ramón Fernández, Andrea Montoli, Fran Muñoz, Gabriele Raccagni and Fernando Tercero make up the ‘sextet’ with which Dario Andriotto will travel to the always beautiful Tuscany to take part in the race organised by the Unione Sportiva Juventus of Lari. The beautiful town is another of those villages whose old walled part stretches over a hill that is the main protagonist as far as orographic difficulties are concerned.
The Lari race is part of the celebrations of the Sagra delle Ciliegie, the Cherry Festival which has been held in Casciana Terme for over 65 years and which brings together artistic, cultural and, hence this race, sporting events. Due to the pandemic situation, it has not been possible to hold activities in the last two years, which is why this 2022 is special. Casciana Terme is the municipality in which the town of Lari is administratively located since a last reform in 2014, although Lari is an enclave with a very long history dating back to Etruscan times and a great economic and political importance that made this population centre the unofficial capital of the Pisan hills.
Dario Andriotto: “It’s not a race with a long history in terms of tradition, but we are in Tuscany, which together with Lombardy and Veneto, are the regions where there are probably the most fans and the most practitioners of our sport in Italy. I think that racing here is a good experience. It’s not an excessively hard race, but it’s not easy either. It’s a race that can be won by various types of riders: a fast rider who climbs well, a much more climbing profile… It’s a race where there are always breakaways. In 2019, the first edition, Davide Bais, now a member of our ProTeam, won with a move just before the last kilometre from a small group of about fifteen riders. I think we can do well, the guys are fine-tuning their form ahead of the Giro and it will be an interesting race to get into a rhythm”.
