Luca Bagnara in the breakaway on the last stage of the Giro Next Gen
The last stage of the Giro Next Gen closed eight days of competition in Italy for the U23 team. Luca Bagnara was in the breakaway, on a special day for him as he was racing close to home, and fought to get as far as possible despite suffering a crash.
The final stage of the Giro for the under-23 team started from Cesena in direction to Forlimpopoli with a 137 kilometre route and a final circuit with the climb to Bertinoro each lap. The stage started at a great pace, just like the two previous stages, with the teams fighting for getting on the breakaway of the day. After the first breakaway that was formed was neutralized, Luca Bagnara managed to form part of a breakaway of 13 riders with a one-minute advantage with 75 kilometres to go. The gap did not grow too much and at 55 kilometres to the finish it was still around one minute.
A few kilometres later, the young Italian went to the ground and had to make a great effort to get back to the leading group. He finally made it along with two other riders who had jumped from the bunch. With 27 kilometres to go, the breakaway was made up of 15 riders who managed a gap that was reduced by 49 seconds when they crossed the finish line marking the start of the last lap. Luca tried to hold on in the select group, but finally gave up and ended up in the reduced bunch of the race leader.
Bagnara was the best rider of the team in the stage and also in the overall classification finishing 18th. He also finished 5th in the Italian cyclists’ classification and Samuel Novak was 9th in the young riders’ classification.
“Luca’s breakaway formed in the area between the climbs, jumping from the second group to the first. With 25 kilometres to go, at one of the refreshment points he fell, we don’t know how. He had to close the gap to get back to the breakaway. We couldn’t reach him at any time because the gap was always around a minute and they didn’t have the radio. On the last climb he couldn’t follow the pace. He had a spectacular Giro. It was the hardest Giro I’ve seen in terms of speed and general level. Other years it has been dominated by several riders, but this time there was a group of 20 riders who were riding very hard. It has been the tightest Giro in recent years,” explained Rafael Díaz Justo, the team’s director in charge in Italy.
“The feeling after finishing the Giro is good. I felt very good and I knew the course very well because it was close to my home so I went out with the intention of getting into the breakaway of the day. I had a crash when I was taking a bottle on the climb of the second lap. I kept going to get ahead in half a lap, but I had to use a lot of energy, which I then lacked to stay in the group and make a top 10. In the end I arrived in the pink jersey group and I managed to climb one place in the general classification and finish 18th. The feeling is good and next week is the Italian Championship and I think I can do well too,” said Bagnara.
