An unforgettable day for the Alé BTC Ljubljana team that in a few hours celebrated two more national titles thanks to the excellent performances of their girls. 24 hours after the ITT title, the Spanish Mavi Garcia gave a further demonstration of her power by conquering, solo, the Women Elite Spanish Championship Road Race.
Great race of the Balearic athlete who surprising the opponents with an attack with two laps to go, on the Baeza climb, together with Ane Santesteban (Ceratizit-WNT). Not an easy action, considering that the Movistar Team’s big group was against them. The two immediately gained valuable time and passed on the last lap (22 km to go) with more than 3 minutes ahead of the bunch. On the final climb of Baeza, Mavi Garcia, 36 years old, makes another acceleration with which finally distnaces Santesteban and Mavi goes for the win with determination.
Mavi Garcia said: “I’m very happy. Today I didn’t know how the race would go because I was alone, without teammates and I didn’t know if I could defend myself against my opponents, but the truth is that today I had a very very positive day, I felt strong from the beginning of the race and once I understood that Movistar’s strategy was to attack continuously, one after the other, I agreed with Ana Santesteban to attack on the climb and try to reduce the number of Movistar girls on the head of the race. We tried. We escaped. We agreed for a long time, and then, on the last climb, I decided to attack, to arrive alone and I am very, very happy”.
Jutatip Maneephan was once again the national road champion in Thailand, winning the final sprint. Another result that makes the general manager of the team Alessia Piccolo and all her staff happy and confirms the qualities of the strong 32-year-old Asian rider.
Sports director Fortunato Lacquaniti is also pleased: “In the last two days Mavi Garcia has collected the satisfaction of the great work done in these months. She confirms the good things she had already shown in Navarra and in the Strade Bianche and above all it shows that she is ready for the European Championships. She has a good condition and it means that we have worked in the right way. I’m also happy for Jutatip. This year, unfortunately, for obvious reasons she couldn’t stay with us in Europe, but with today’s result she confirms that she is one of the best riders in Asia”.
In conclusion, we remember that also toke place yesterday afternoon the Italian Championship ITT: we report the fifth place of Tatiana Guderzo and the ninth of Marta Bastianelli, both in race with the Fiamme Azzurre.
(ph. @RFECiclismo)