Alé BTC Ljubljana on fire: Mavi Garcia wins Giro dell'Emilia Donne Elite. And Bastianelli fifth at Roubaix

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​Third victory of the season for the Spanish champion Mavi Garcia who, after the two national titles in June, today returned to raise her arms to the sky with a fine success at the Giro dell’Emilia BPER Banca Internazionale Donne Elite, a race of 87.2 km with finish at the top of the San Luca climb in Bologna. A win that prolongs the excellent moment of the team Alé BTC Ljubljana and gives the UCI victory number 13 of the season.

Solo success for the strong Iberian climber, who left behind the Cuban Arlenis Sierra (A.R. Monex Women’s Pro Cycling Team) and the Australian Rachel Neylan (Parkhotel Valkenburg).

Mavi Garcia said: “Since the race was held on the same day as the Roubaix, we knew that the strongest climbers wouldn’t be there, but it was still a tough race. We tried to organise the race in the best possible way, my teammates worked very well to get me in the first positions at the start of the final climb. I knew that Arlenis Sierra is a very strong athlete who is now enjoying a very good shape and that the very explosive final could be suitable for her, but we decided to keep a steady pace in front and then in the hardest section I tried to force, I managed to make a hole and I’m very happy to have won”.

Also today, there was a historic first edition of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes, the classic race par excellence of world cycling, which this year also opened to women. The team Alé BTC Ljubljana has been able to be protagonist in a particular way with the Italian Marta Bastianelli - already winner in career of a Tour of Flanders - always present in the group of the best that has chased the outrider Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), splendid winner after more than 80 km of solitary escape.

After 116,4 km from Denain to the mythical velodrome of Roubaix, with 17 sectors and a total of 29,2 km of stones, all made even more complicated by the mud and rain of the previous hours, with many falls, Marta Bastianelli ended the race with an excellent fifth place, winning the sprint of her small group. A result of great value for the Italian athlete and for the whole team that also today has been a protagonist on the international scene at the end of a day that will go down in history.

(ph. Photobicicailotto)