Third recent win for Net App rider
Building up for its debut in the Giro d’Italia, Team NetApp clocked up another victory today when Jan Barta soloed to success in the 1.1 Rund um Köln. The Czech rider reached the finish two minutes and two seconds ahead of a six man chase group, which was led home by An Post Sean Kelly team rider Gediminas Bagdonas and Vacansoleil DCM’s Tomasz Marczynski.
It was the third individual victory in two weeks for the 27 year old. Last month he won the individual time trial and the overall classification in the Settimana Coppi e Bartali, clocking up an important victory for NetApp.
Today further underlined the team’s improvement, and will be an additional morale boost before next month’s big race.
“I’m very happy that I was finally able to prevail with a breakaway attempt, and particularly in a difficult race like today’s in which the weather conditions pushed everyone to the limit,” Barta said.
The 96th edition of the race was run off in cold, wet weather. A large group went clear early on and from this Bagdonas and Pavel Brutt (Katusha) pushed on ahead.
Just after the eighty kilometre mark, nine others got across. These were Barta, his team-mate Matthias Brändle, Marczynski, Boy van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare), Wilco Keldermann (Rabobank), William Clarke (Champion System), Tom Dumoulin (Argos-Shimano), Ivan Ronny (RusVelo) and Mauritius Lammertink (Cycling Team Jo Piels).
Barta then jumped clear on the final climb of the day and set about building what would be an unassailable lead.
“It was very hard for me to win today,” he said. “My legs were good during the break and I just rode away. I figured there was a little opportunity for me, since the rain was really giving all the riders a hard time. I was counting on the chasers being disorganised when trying to catch up.
“In the second lap, I was already flat out, but I also knew that I could win the race.”
Behind, Bagdonas and Marczynski led in the chase group for second and third, while what was left of the peloton came in over thirteen minutes down.
NetApp directeur sportif Jens Heppner talked tactics afterwards. “We wanted to make the race difficult from the very beginning today. That’s why we tried attacking early on to break up the peloton,” he said. “We didn’t let up until the group was in place. With Jan and Matthias, we had two riders up front so we could let Jan attack at the last climb.
“That was more than risky with pursuers like Brutt and Dumoulin. Fifty kilometres before the finish line I had to make the decision to let Jan take off on his own or bring him back to the pursuing group and rely on a mass sprint. It was a very big risk, but Jan’s current form encouraged me to let him ride. Only a time trial pro like Jan could have done it.”
The team recently told VeloNation that Barta was likely to ride the Giro d’Italia. His next scheduled races are De Brabantse Pijl (April 11th) and the Giro del Trentino (April 17-20) .