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Pink for Polanc in 2019 Giro

  • Ron 

After an exhilarating stage in the mountains, the first of this year’s Giro, Jan Polanc has risen up the GC rankings to take the pink jersey from teammate Valerio Conti, ensuring that UAE Team Emirates retains the iconic Maglia Rosa and takes it into the later half of the tour.

Polanc crossed the line in 6th place behind stage winner Cearse Benedetti (BORA – Hansgrohe), but the impressive team performance of the Emirati outift allowed the Slovenian climber to leap frog his closest rivals into the top spot. After the tactical masterclass played by UAE Team Emirates, Polanc now has a comfortable buffer of 4’07” over race favourite Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) who sits in second spot and is 4’51” ahead of team mate Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates) who sits in third place.

The 158km mountain stage from Cuneo to Pinerolo was raced at a high pace, averaging over 42km/h, despite the peloton having to get over a challenging category 1 climb known as the ‘Muro’ or wall. The 9km ramp, which topped out at 14% played an instrumental role in splitting up the peloton and isolating a lot of the main GC contenders – making it difficult for them to chase down the 24 man breakaway. Jan Polanc was one of the GC hopefuls who managed to sneak into the early break and stayed with the group throughout the race. With 20kms to go the lead group was down to a handful of riders but Polanc remained in the mix and looked strong, driven on with the knowledge that he was the virtual Maglia Rosa. Polanc continued to ride hard, picking up 3 valuable bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint in Cavour and finally crossed the line in 6th place after over 3 hours and 42 minutes in the saddle.

Commenting on his first win of the season, Polanc said: “It was a great stage today and I achieved my goal. I was aiming for the stage win also, but the others knew I could take the jersey so I had to work extra hard. Myself and Valerio are similar riders and now after two stage wins in previous Giros I get to wear the pink jersey. It’s an absolute dream come true for me so I’ll fight to keep it as long as possible.”

Commenting on the race, Conti said: “Everything went as planned today. Tactically it was perfect. I think we took everyone by surprise. As for me, I had a wonderful week with some amazing days in pink. I think today I showed I’m a team player and I’m delighted for Polanc because he’s done a lot of work for me in the past week. I’m happy I lost the jersey to him – he deserves it.”

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