Oldani seeks surprise in Canfranc-Estación, where López also arrives with the best
44ª Vuelta Ciclista a Aragón
Stage 2: Sádaba-Canfranc Station (182.6 km)
Half a kilometre remains to reach the Canfranc-Station finish line, a large platoon has just snuffed out the last offensive attempts and in the run-up to the Stefano Oldani energy arrival preparations. The Italian of the Kometa Cycling Team bet on surprising with an attack that kept him in the lead for three hundred metres, although he ended up being engulfed by the multiple pulse staged in a finish that stung upwards in which the French Jonathan Hivert (Total Direct Energie) finally won and from which the Cantabrian Jesús Ezquerra (Burgos) started as the new leader in the general standings.
Oldani, faithful to his offensive style, felt the success. And in a journey through the less usual Pyrenees the cyclists of the Kometa Cycling Team did not lose face to the race. It was a day in which the leaks were very expensive, it cost a lot to gestate them and even more to keep them alive, riding with advantages never superior to two minutes or two and a half minutes. A stage that imposed and that many had marked with red. It was an important day and it was felt in the development of the test, with much interest in keeping its evolution controlled. Isaac Cantón was one of the ‘kometa’ who got involved in the fight for escapes in a very fast first hour of the race, where it was rolled at an average speed of 43 km/h.
“The sensations were again very good in a day that resulted from a great demand, “says Oldani. “In the second port of the day Movistar started to work hard and hardened the race. We stayed about thirty riders, but in the back terrain and facing the finish grew. It increased to about forty or fifty. When there were 500 metres left, I tried to anticipate your arrival, but I was caught. It was tested. Tomorrow we’ll try again”.
Oldani would end up crossing the finish line in 40th position, 29 seconds from the winner. Before that, twenty-ninth, his team-mate Juan Pedro López concluded. The Andalusian cyclist, in the race that represents his return to competition after overcoming a tendinitis, was the spearhead of a small group that finished 14 seconds from the winner, the first of the small groups emerged from the frenetic final where the platoon stretched a lot and broke into several groups. “Today I had very good sensations. In San Juan de la Peña we stayed about ten riders in the pack, although later we ended up getting more cyclists and formed a large group.
The Aragonese round concludes this Sunday with a 127.4 kilometre stage between Huesca and Zaragoza in which, as on the opening day, the action of the wind can be decisive for the resolution of the same… and of the general one. The first part of the stage has a broken design, while the second part is much more favourable for a sprint resolution. Juan Pedro López will start as the best classified of the team in the general classification, the 38th, one minute from the leadership. At 1:16, in the 40th position, is Oldani.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
