Time to kick off the Trofeo Circolo d'Italia! The opener in Teramo is quite interesting, as it's a flat circuit with tricky uphill-section, which may hurt some pure sprinter's legs.
Anyway, the sprinters should be today's favorites and the Tifosi will have a couple of local heroes to cheer for:
Claudio Cucinotta (Amore), Francesco Chicchi (WIT), Matteo Priamo (Idea) and Manuel Belletti (Colnago) to be named first.
Metinvest brought a couple of interesting allrounders with David Vitoria or Giorgio Brambilla, while ING will hope for Daniele Di Nucci to deliver.
Let's not forget Polychronis Tzortzakis for the Greece-Romanian team Eata Hellenic Post though.
Arnaud Grand (riding for VW) and Nicola D'Andrea (ING) are the first to attack for a first breakaway attempt.
They are joined by Cisco's Moris Possoni and Andrea Zordan (Italy U25), leading by already 1'20" with one lap raced.
Possoni may be one of the stronger riders for the hilly races, so his goal is to score in the flats as well.
Same goes for Mattia Pozzo (Idea), who's a strong climber and definitely can do something in the mountainous race.
He joined the breakaway (5 riders), which leads by 1'34" with 35km to go.
Halfway through the race, we see Team WIT (for Chicchi) and Amore&Vita (Cucinotta) leading the bunch.
The gap never grew bigger than 1'40" and it's still looking like the peloton is in control here.
Which may change now: 17km before finish a group of 4 riders attacks!
Markus Eibegger (Vorarlberg), Benedikt Mundle (Sauber), Charalampas Kastrantas (Eata) and Daniele Callegarin (Italy) try to break clear!
They managed to bridge the gap to the early escapees quickly, but the bunch is pacing hard to reel them in!
Metinvest and (surprisingly) Team Idea helped the pack to swallow the 9-men-group, 4km before the finish.
One for the sprinters today?
Not yet! 3km to go and another 5 riders attack the bunch:
Metinvest goes all-in with Brambilla, Vitoria and Capecchi launching this late attack! Simone Masciarelli (ING) and Paolo Longo Borghini (Italy) try to hang on.
And what a powerful move this was: just as the sprint kicks off, the late attackers established a 21"-gap on the bunch, which seemed to be shocked for a moment!
Brambilla leads Vitoria to a few bike lengths' advantage on teammate Capecchi and Masciarelli/Borghini!
The sprinters behind definitely have to pull the strings hard now: Barbin (Colnago), Di Nucci (ING) and Chicchi (WIT) are next in line, as we see some other sprinters struggling (Cucinotta, Belletti)!
Metinvest's trio reaches the kite with a growing gap on the now suffering duo Masciarelli/Borghini!
And as the sprinting bunch is still too far behind, this is looking pretty good for Vitoria, who now took the lead..
1-2-3 for Metinvest! Wow! What an opener for the team, even without Nolan Hoffman they keep shining this season.
David Vitoria takes out the first race of this Crits Series, ahead of Giorgio Brambilla and Eros Capecchi. Thanks to a surprising and super-strong late attack, fooling the bunch-sprint-expecting bunch. Very well done!
Matteo Priamo managed to sprint for 4th, ahead of a strong-finishing Mauro Facci (Farnese) and Francesco Chicchi.
Simone Masciarelli lunged in for 7th, Enrico Barbin 8th and Paolo Longo Borghini also took points as 9th, ahead of Elia Viviani.
This was a quite surprising, but stunning opener, concluded with a bang by Metinvest. Should make for some more thrilling races.
Claudio Cucinotta (Amore), Francesco Chicchi (WIT), Matteo Priamo (Idea) and Manuel Belletti (Colnago) to be named first.
David Vitoria
