Manuel Peñalver third on the opening day of the Tour of Taiwan

The Taipei circuit served as a welcome to the Tour of Taiwan. Team Polti Kometa fulfilled its role of race control. In the final sprint, Peñalver took third position to start the race from the podium.

The script was set, with a breakaway of five riders that made its way through the eight laps of the course. Very fast, without any difficulty, the front group shot their advantage over 1:20 and forced Polti Kometa to work to control the race. The Kern Pharma Team also helped in this task.

It was hard work to reduce the lead of the breakaway. Both Davide de Cassan and Fran Muñoz made a vital effort to neutralise, almost in the moments before the final sprint, the group ahead. Manuel Peñalver went for the victory and came close to raising his arms with a third position that he will try to improve in future opportunities.

Manuel Peñalver: “Third at the finish, equalling my best result in Taiwan. We missed a dangerous breakaway and we had to work, our team-mates did a great job to neutralise and in the sprint I was able to get a podium. It doesn’t taste like much because we want the victory, but it also sets the way to improve that position in the rest of the stages”.

Biagio Conte, sport director: “The stage was short, the course was easy and in the end our goal was to control the race. Team Israel put one rider in front, so they didn’t work from behind and we only found support from Kern Pharma Team. We worked well with [Davide] de Cassan and Fran Muñoz, and we could be on the podium in the sprint. Tomorrow we will have another chance in an equally short but more demanding day, which can mark the general classification. We will have to prevent the leader’s team from putting riders in front to force them to work on controlling the race”.