The toughness of Marabón and the adversity of a puncture allied against Javi Serrano, who retained third place on the podium
Vuelta Ciclista a Zamora
Stage 5: Santa Marta de Tera – Hedroso (126,1 km)
Javi Serrano from Madrid was unable to hold on to the lead of the Vuelta a Zamora in a queen stage where toughness allied with adversity. A puncture on the way through a small village on a narrow, downhill stretch near Lubián, an incident that required a change of saddle, cut him off from a group where the pace was increasing without the leader. There were forty kilometres to go. The hardest. He managed to come back, boosted by the team, but with a lot of accumulated wear and tear.
The exceptional work of up to four companions allowed him to return to the discipline of the group of favourites just before the climb to Ladiairo, very hard, where both the Ethiopian Mulu Hailemichael (Caja Rural) and the Uruguayan Eric Fagúndez (Cortizo) went on the attack. Serrano would manage to finish twenty seconds behind and in the following section there would be an important regrouping of all the aspirants to the general classification. At this point Tom Martin (Brocar Ale) remained in the lead, the last member of the five-rider breakaway that had been the main protagonist for most of the day.
In Marabón, the hot spot of the day with two very hard kilometres and a last kilometre with an average of 13%, Caja Rural imposed a very high pace from the start, after which Hailemichael went on the attack. There were 16.5 km to go. The Ethiopian, Fagúndez and José Luis Faura (Valverde) went away while Javi Serrano suffered. Andrea Montoli and Andrea Pietrobon held their leader with an impressive work, but at the top Serrano lost 1’45” with the race leader.
Serrano, Pietrobon and Montoli launched a difficult defence on the descent in which they managed to reduce a lot of time and launch the rider from Madrid on the final climb, where he managed to finish in the top 10 of the day and retain third place in the overall, 29 seconds behind Fagúndez.
“If it wasn’t for my team-mates, I still wouldn’t have made it in”, smiles Serrano, who thus highlighted the great work of the squad. “Throughout the day, my team-mates have helped me a lot. Tomorrow is another day, and although it is true that everything is a bit more difficult and that today was the key day, we are still there and we are not going to stop fighting for it”. This Sunday, the Vuelta a Zamora concludes with a stage finishing in Toro with a lot of pepper.
The Spaniard explains what happened to him: “I had one of those days that nobody wants to have in cycling: at the decisive point of the race, when it was going very fast, I blew my tyres on a manhole. Luckily I managed to control the bike and not fall, because we were going fast. What the team did today was amazing. They all stopped to wait for me, gave me the bike and gave their all to get me back with the best. We made it right at the start of the climb. At the third attack of Fagúndez I couldn’t do anything. But this is cycling and we know that it can always happen. My team gave me a lot of support, it was amazing, I take my hat off to my team-mates”.
“The whole team was riding in front of the group, because it was very important to do so, and when we passed a small village Javi had a puncture. The whole team stopped immediately and we pushed hard to catch the group of the best riders again. We did it with a lot of effort. At the end, Pietrobon and I were with Javi, working very hard to minimise the losses. And we stayed very close to the front”, explains Andrea Montoli.
[📷 @lavueltaazamora]
