Stefano Oldani takes part in the Giro della Toscana in full fight to be with Italy in the Worlds
IV Giro de la Toscana – Memorial Alfredo Martini
Pontedera – Pontedera (204.4 km)
The Italian Stefano Oldani faces the final straight of the fight for a place in the Italian team that will compete in the race on route U23 of the World Yorkshire. Of the eight pre-selected, two will be left out. Oldani, Giovanni Aleotti, Samuele Battistella, Alessandro Covi, Alberto Dainese, Nicola dalla Valle, Gregorio Ferri and Alexander Konychev are fighting to join the team. This Thursday, in a new edition of the Coppa Sabatini, the Lombard of the Kometa Cycling Team will face a key appointment. But before that, this Wednesday, he took part in the fourth edition of the Giro della Toscana, starting and finishing in Pontedera.
The Giro della Toscana has its roots in the first third of the twentieth century and it has shone with names such as Constante Girardengo, Alfredo Binda, Fiorenzo Magni, Gino Bartali and Francesco Moser. But after the suspension of 2015 the race was reborn, pushing along with the Grand Prix Cittá di Peccioli-Coppa Sabatini a sort of stage race, Memorial Alfredo Martini, with which to gain notoriety within the panorama of ‘premondiale’ events. Depending on the point of view, this Giro de la Toscana would face its 91st or 4th edition, both figures can be seen indistinctly according to the emitter. In any case, enlisted in an Italian team that included Davide Formolo and Giulio Ciccone, among others, Oldani took part in the 2019 edition.
Three steps through the spectacular Monte Serra, ‘only’ 626 meters of altitude but with almost 8.5 kilometers of ascent to an average slope higher than 7%, emerged as fundamental for the resolution of the race. And so it was, with the quartet configuration after the last step after an attack by Colombian Egan Bernal. Giovani Visconti would beat the sprint in Pontedera. And by then Oldani had retired, who worked for half a hundred kilometers in favor of his teammates. That Pierpaolo Ficara, member this Wednesday of the selection, took that quartet gave all the sense of the world to his great work.
“I was working shortly before the second lap of the Monte Serra circuit. I kept pulling about fifty kilometers. Then I retired with my eyes on this Thursday’s race, because it will be much more important for me. It’s going to be a fundamental day for my possible call for the World Championship”, explains Oldani. In the 195.9 kilometres of the GP Cittá di Peccioli, this Thursday, the solution to many uncertainties.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
? Atila Madrona
