Lonardi is fifth, on David Martin’s “tough and beautiful” day
“A hard day, but so beautiful.” And in the words of David Martin is everything that happened today in the second stage of the Tour Poitou-Charentes, 185.7 km from Aulnay-de-Saintonge to Bressuire. A tough day because the heat and the nervous course left no room for the riders. A good day because even today, after the second place centered yesterday by Lonardi, EOLO KOMETA managed to be protagonist and make its mark.
But let’s start from the beginning, with a breakaway of four riders gone almost immediately but without any of ours: it was not an acceptable thing, and here David Martin decided to make up for it by going to close on the escapees together with another rider thus forming a group of six riders who started working together. The breakaway was thus given space, and David was the absolute protagonist by going on to win both the two KOMs and the two sprint finishes: a courage that was rewarded with the prize of combativeness. The breakaway was resumed with 12 km to go and the group prepared for the final sprint: as soon as the breakaway resumed a fall involved a few riders including our Samuele Rivi who then broke away, while the rest of the team worked as always for Lonardi, in the final sprint there was a small breakaway with Lonardi who made a good sprint finishing fifth.
Stefano Zanatta: “Again today the team rode very well, showing great racing presence and a lot of courage. Davìd was very good first to catch the breakaway and then to be protagonist on the sprints as we always ask, and the team was good to work then in the final. Too bad for the fall of Rivi, who was not hurt but unfortunately lost time: we hoped to make a good overall classification with him. In the final sprint Lonardi moved very well and hit another good placing: tomorrow the time trial I think will decide the final classification.”
Davìd Martin: “Tough but good, that’s how my day was. I managed to go in the breakaway, they had attacked in three and I decided to try to go and catch them and it went well. Then I had the goal of scoring as many points as possible between mountains and intermediate sprints and it went well, I’m happy for Lonardi who finished fifth but most of all I’m happy for how the team worked.”
A look at the rankings. In the overall standings, Lonardi is now fourth at 10″ behind leader Penhoet (winner at today’s finish) and Sevilla is sixth also at 10″ behind the leader. Lonardi is also second in the points classification while the climbers’ classification sees David Martin second and Diego Sevilla third. Tomorrow is a double stage, with a 22-km time trial in the afternoon that will change the overall classification.
