Team MTN-Qhubeka animate stage 2 at Giro del Trentino

The Italian Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani) took out the biggest win of his career win he climbed to victory at today’s 2nd stage of the Giro del Trentino. Przemyslaw Niemic (Lampre) crossed the line in 2nd with Fabio Duarte (Colombia) in 3rd place. Cadel Evans (BMC) pulled on the leaders yellow jersey after crossing the line with the same time of the front 3 riders.

Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had a good day out and showed its colours valiantly as the young riders threw caution to wind by constantly going on the attack during the final climb. With 3 riders hitting the foot of the final climb with a 40″ gap, Jacques Janse van Rensburg was the first rider to go on the attack. Janse van Rensburg wasn’t able to get much of an advantage with this initial attack but it did reduce the gap to the break quite substantially.

Just as Janse van Rensburg was brought back, Daniel Teklehaimanot took it upon himself to be the next aggressor for Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung. Teklehaimanot quickly opened up a small lead but Team Sky were intent on keeping the race together and reeled the Eritrean and the remaining break in. Janse van Rensburg was clearly on a good day, as he has been for most of the season, and again put in the next attack with 10km to go.

This move by Janse van Rensburg (MTN) would prove to be race defining as eventual stage winner Zardini followed the move along with Damiano Caruso (Cannondale), Stefano Pirazzi, (Bardiani) and Mikel Landa (Astana). The 5 riders quickly opened up their lead to 20 seconds before Zardani decided to go solo with 5km left to race. He would ride away with the victory as the rest of the break would later be absorbed back into the main group, which contained Louis Meintjes. The South African champion would go on to finish 15th to end off a good day for Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung.

Rider – Jacques Janse van Rensburg

It was a really good day for me and the team. The plan was for me to attack on the final climb if the speed wasn’t high enough and i did, but as soon as i went BMC and Sky started controlling the race on the climb. I didn’t want to waste energy for no reason so i came back to the bunch and then Daniel went and the speed of the bunch lifted some more.

As soon as Daniel was caught the speed dropped and i put in another hard attack and got a good 20 second gap. 3 riders joined me and Zardini from Bardiani ended up winning from that move. I was still able to ride strongly to the finish, ending 1min 20 down in 30th place. Louis did a good ride to finish 15th which now leaves me, Louis as well as Sergio in decent positions on GC in a race that is on a very high level.

We are really happy with the teams performance today, we were aggressive and now we will look for a good result in the following stages.

Directeur Sportif – Kevin Campbell

We really didn’t have much to lose for today’s stage so it was our intention to race positively. Today we could also see just how far we have come in a year.

Stage 2 Result

1st – Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani)
2nd – Przemyslaw Niemic (Lampre)
3rd – Fabio Duarte (Colombia)
15th – Louis Meintjes (MTN-Qhubeka)

Profiles Overview

Stage 3 – Mori > Ronconi (184km)
A day of constant undulations takes riders over a category 2 and category 1 climb before another summit finish a top the category 2 Roncone climb. A small group of climbers can be expected to come to the line together today.

Stage 4 – Val Daone > Monte Bondone (175km)
The final stage and certainly the queen stage. After an early category 1 climb the race will go over a category 2 climb before the grand finale finish that will see the peloton climb the final 20km’s to Monte Bondone at an average gradient of 8% to conclude the Giro del Trentino. This out of category climb will certainly decide the overall honours.

Giro del Trentino – (Italy) – (22-25 April/UCI 2.HC) Team Lineup