Andrea Pietrobon, protagonist in the final revolution of Navarre and seventh in the definitive overall
Vuelta a Navarra
Stage 4: Pamplona – Pamplona (124,8 km)
The Vuelta a Navarra came to a close this Sunday on the Avenida Sancho el Fuerte in Pamplona with a new turnaround in the overall after a vibrant last day, the day of the ‘walls’, the day of the ‘short climbs’, with up to seven steep slopes. In the streets of Pamplona, Pablo García (Caja Rural) won, while the American Andrew Vollmer (Arabay) won the final classification in which Andrea Pietrobon finally finished seventh.
On the approach to Olaverri, the first of the day’s climbs, there was a big crash in the peloton involving Marcel Camprubí, winner of the previous day’s race. After the climb, the race entered a dynamic of breakaways that saw a group of around thirty riders, with Andrea Pietrobon and Javi Serrano present for the blue team, but without the leader Alejandro Franco. The change began.
#VueltaNavarra. Últimos siete kilómetros con García (7) y Vollmer (57) en cabeza con 50″ sobre el grupo donde viaje Pietrobon.
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📽️ Vídeo @Vuelta_Navarra del Paso por Artajona.#EOLOKOMETACyclingTeam #VN22 #Etapa4 pic.twitter.com/itqB5Y79Wn— FundContadorTeam (@FundContaTeam) May 29, 2022
This leading group, where there was no lack of offensives, was overcoming one by one the walls and consolidating the gap with respect to the leader’s group. In this phase of ‘the breakaway of the breakaway’, a maelstrom in which Andrea Pietrobon also tried it on several occasions, Pablo García ended up leaving on the ascent to the Alto del Perdón, later caught by Andrew Vollmer. Not even the Muro de Galar, with its 20% gradient, slowed down the pair, who were 38 seconds ahead of their pursuers.
Rafa Díaz Justo, director of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team U23: “We leave this edition of the Vuelta a Navarra very happy with our performance. We came with a young team to a race of extreme hardness within the category, with the idea of going day by day the first three days to see what the race had in terms of classification and we leave with a partial victory, the final top10 of Pietrobon and a very good group performance every day, even in spite of the crashes that unfortunately have accompanied us. We keep on working”.
#VueltaNavarra. ¡Gran carrera, chavales!
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Andrea Pietrobon: “I’m happy with the result, especially because this Tour of Navarre was my first stage race after almost a year. In the end I felt a lot of accumulated effort, so today I felt good, but not with a super feeling. Today it was all day at the front, riding on a hard course, with a lot of climbs and with many alternatives. The result is nice. In the end it’s very good after all the physical problems I had last season”.
Arnau Gilabert and Marcel Camprubí, in the top 10 after the third stage, dropped to 13th and 14th positions, respectively. Gilabert had a great race, especially on the uphill road, 13th in Belagüa and 5th on the Cerro de San Cristóbal. “We’re still learning,” Gilabert said. “Today I made a big mistake by not being in the breakaway. I didn’t know how to handle the situation at that moment and it’s a lesson for the future. On a personal level, I’m in good shape and the harder the race gets, the better I see that I’m getting. But that’s not everything in this sport. If I had been in front today, maybe I could have drawn some more consistent conclusions. Not knowing how to handle some situations is part of learning. So it’s time to wipe the slate clean and focus on the next one”.
