March 19, 2007

Young Riccò wins again

Tirreno-Adriatico: Riccò wins

Riccardo Riccò took the tough third stage of the 42nd edition of Tirreno - Adriatico, the longest leg of this UCI Pro Tour race, 213 kilometres from Marsciano to Macerata. The Italian rider from SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR showed his strength in the three final and exciting kilometres, finishing ahead of Alexander Vinokourov and Andreas Klöden, both riding for Astana.

After several attempts by the big guns -Vinokourov (Astana), Freire (Rabobank), Kessler (Astana)- the young man in yellow took victory thanks to his solid performance in the last, taxing climb, first accompanied by Scarponi (Acqua & Sapone) and then alone. The 23 year-old from Modena knew how to take advantage of his slight two-second gap over Vinokourov in the last 400 meters. The Kazakh rider won the group sprint over German teammate Andreas Klöden. Russian Alexandr Arekeev (Acqua & Sapone), who won Saturday's stage, retains the leader´s red and yellow jersey, with an advantage of only 21 seconds over Riccò, who climbed into second place as a result of his outstanding performance today.

Today´s victory was the second by Riccò this season, the first one being the fourth stage of the Tour de San Luis in Argentina. And it was the third time the SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR team has grabbed a victory this year, with David Millar winning the Prologue in Paris - Nice, which means the yellow team has notched wins in back to back UCI Pro Tour events. Tomorrow, Riccò and the whole squad will fight for the overall lead in the fourth day of racing in Italy, a 161km stage from Pievebovigliana to Offagna, featuring an uphill finish.