Beauty and toughness. Here is the Tour of The Alps.
It was once called the Tour of Trentino, and it lived in the beauty of a land of forests and mountains. It has changed its name, it has learned to discover territories and climbs in neighboring Austria, it has discovered an international vocation: the beauty of this race, its toughness, its importance in the calendar next to an ever-closer Giro d’Italia has not changed. And in fact, the riders who will want to be protagonists at the Giro will almost all be there to do battle in the five proposed stages: one tougher than the other, lots of climbing, very little room for quiet. And among them, also our Lorenzo Fortunato who will try to take some satisfaction and test his condition after the training period in the mountains. With him, a team that will feature Trentino’s Mattia and Davide Bais and Samuele Rivi, with Garosio, Alex Martin and Fernando Tercero.
It starts Monday with the Rattenberg-Alpbach, on Austrian soil: 127.5 kilometers with more than 2,500 meters of elevation gain that will see the stage explode in the last 50 kilometers with the climbs of the Brandenberg, the Kerschbaumer Sattel and the one that will lead to the finish in Alpbach. Tuesday is the turn of the longest stage, 165.2 km from Alpbach to Renon with the return to Italy and the GPMs of Barbiano and Monte di Mezzo in the last 15 km. Wednesday will go from Renon to Brentonico San Valentino, with the 15.5 km at 7.5 percent of the final climb that will make a lot of selection. The next day, the peloton will still face a lot of climbing in the Rovereto – Predazzo (152.9 km), with more than 3700 meters of total elevation gain: the climbs of Passo Sommo, that of Lago Santa Colomba and the Passo Pramadiccio (9.7 km at 6.1%) will make themselves felt in the legs and in the overall classification. Last stage on Friday, the Cavalese-Brunico (144.5 km): on the day’s menu are the Lavazè Pass (9.6 km at 8.3 percent with peaks at 17 percent) and the Riomolino climb (7.8 km at 8.2 percent and peaks at 18 percent) before the finish.
Lorenzo Fortunato: “This is a race I’ve always watched on TV and never done, but I’ve always liked it because it’s all uphill and it’s my terrain. I’m ready, I’m going to try to get results: I’m not going to go to prepare for the Giro d’Italia but to try to get a win. I’m fine, I’m looking forward to racing.”
Jesus Hernandez: “We will try to continue in the same line as Sicily, in this case we will focus on Fortunato and the whole team will run around him trying to help him get a good result. We won’t aim for breakaways, I think it’s more important to stay with Fortunato and keep him in the best positions: we will try to keep the same philosophy and the same way of racing that we had in Sicily.”
