Henrique Bravo will lead the team at one of the season’s last major appointments.
Oggiono, a small town that sits just 40 kilometers from Milano, will serve as the start and finish of this year’s Piccolo Lombardia, a race which our Devo squad has won three years ago. The course will be one of two different halves: a first one consisting of a hilly circuit featuring the Ello and Barzago climbs - which is sure to gradually whittle down the peloton as they’ll cover it four times - and the decisive part that kicks off with the Madonna del Ghisallo.
After a long descent from the top of this iconic ascent, the riders are set to tackle in quick succession the Chiare and Muro dell’Alpino. Both hills are short but boast double-digit gradients that are sure to bring the victory contenders to the fore. The last difficulty of the race comes in the closing ten kilometers: Marconaga di Ello, a 1.8km climb that is followed by a fast descent to the finish, where the winner of this 98th edition will be crowned.
Soudal Quick-Step Devo, who last weekend earned its 12th win of the year, will take on the 177km-long Piccolo Lombardia with Henrique Bravo - the 20-year-old who wrote history for Brazil this year in Italy by finishing third at the Giro Next Gen and winning Giro della Valle d’Aosta - Said Cisneros, Matthijs De Clercq, Gauthier Servranckx, and Marc Zafra.
“We have a strong team built around a strong leader, Henrique. It’s a parcours that suits him and we are confident in his chances after the season he’s had and the form shown last week at the World Championships, but also in Slovakia. Of course, it won’t be easy, but we have what it takes to fight for a good result at the end of the day”, said sports director Eliot Lietaer.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
