Turkey: you can never be calm. Sicily, the wind wins.

Giro di Sicilia
3rd stage: Realmonte-Piazza Armerina (171 km)

Up and down Sicily, buffeted by the wind: in your face, on the side. When it happens like this, you put your foot down and you say only one thing: difficult day, very difficult. The chronicle of the stage talks about a breakaway started almost immediately and difficult to catch with one of the attackers of the day – Miholjević – very good at resisting until the end to take the stage and the leader’s jersey.

Behind, bravo to Vincenzo Albanese who brought home a fifth place in the pursuers’ sprint after a day spent fighting against the wind. A difficult day, very difficult.

Diego Rosa: “Today was hard, the wind was really strong and did not stop blowing for a moment: I feel as if I had been slapped in the face. Albanese was good, even if I’m sorry for this other placement: he would deserve a victory, so much. Let’s say that if he keeps trying like he’s doing, sooner or later the victory will come.

Presidential Tour of Turkey (2.PRO)
Stage 5: Manisa – Ayvalik (192km)

Not a single day without crashes in the eventful Turkey. A very quiet stage, on the way to the coast, in which two riders made the road without a chance and in which EOLO Kometa looked for the sprint finish. The peloton was split into three groups in the air in the second half of the day, but although the strongest teams put up a strong fight, everything came together again for a mass finish.

However, the finish again showed the hardest face of cycling with a pile-up with less than 1 kilometre to go, which ruined any chance for the blues and affected Lonardi. Director Jesús Hernández stresses the “stress of every day. The crashes for us are not having serious consequences, but they prevent us from being in the fight. Tomorrow we have a more playful finish with options for Gavazzi or for the breakaway, without forgetting the general classification”.

Maurizio Borserini