The young Italian was in the mix at the Digital Swiss 5.
The five-day virtual cycling series continued Friday afternoon with the demanding Race 3, which after an undulating first part took the participants at the base of the Nufenen Pass, Switzerland’s highest road pass, which was tackled by a host of World Tour riders, including neo-pro Andrea Bagioli, Mattia Cattaneo and Bob Jungels.
“I knew it was going to be very hard and it was even harder than I had expected. It felt like a long individual time trial, but a gruelling one with those last 12 kilometers of climbing. From the start, I tried to carefully dose my effort and keep energy for the climb, where I gave everything”, Andrea said of the challenging race. “In my opinion, it was the best strategy, because I didn’t go into the red and it helped me recover more than ten positions by the end of the race. It was a strange experience to take part in a virtual race and it had some interesting aspects, but I can’t wait for road cycling to return, because we all miss it so much.”
Winner of this year’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Kasper Asgreen will be one of the three Deceuninck – Quick-Step riders “lining-up” for Race 4, alongside Tim “El Tractor” Declercq and reigning E3 Harelbeke champion Zdenek Stybar.
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen / Getty Images
