Our young Italian gained one place on the demanding penultimate stage of the race, while Max Schachmann made his way into the top ten.
Andrea Raccagni continued his strong week at the Deutschland Tour, which on Saturday awaited the riders with a course featuring nine climbs, more than 3000 vertical meters and even some rain. The 169km route ran from Herxheim to Bad Dürkheim, taking the peloton deep into the Palatinate Forest, with the double ascent of the Kalmit and Annaberg as the main highlights of the day.
It came as no surprise that the main attacks from the peloton were launched from the distance, and in the end, one of these went all the way to the line, where Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) took the win from a two-up sprint. The reduced peloton arrived 50 seconds later, and Andrea sprinted to an impressive fifth place, a result that put him into fourth overall ahead of the final day.
“It was a really good stage for us. The team did a great job to bring me and Max in a good position before each climb. I felt better and better with each kilometer and I even tried to follow the two attackers. Then, on the last ascent, I was able to close an attack and still had something left to sprint and finish in the top five. Let’s see what we can do on Sunday, it would be nice to round out our week with another good result”, said Raccagni, who is joined in the top ten overall by Max Schachmann.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
