Nothing broken for flouro-yellow sprinter and the hunt for stage victories continues
Farnese Vini-Selle Italia has declared itself pleased with its fourteenth place in today’s Verona team time trial, but for one thing. The flouro-yellow team finished 59 seconds behind the winning Garmin-Barracuda team but, since it has no rider with any overall ambition, the time lost is largely irrelevant.
What is of concern however is that the team’s young sprinter Andrea Guardini crashed with eight kilometres to go, and had to be left behind.
“We rode a really good time trial for our level in this discipline,” said directeur sportif Luca Scinto. “I sincerely thought that some of the other teams would beat us by much more.
“I offer my congratulations to all the guys, and my sympathy to Guardini, who came down through simple inattention. Luckily “il Guardia” has a thick skin and he’s ready for tomorrow!”
Today’s crash was Guardini’s second of the race so far; the 22-year-old just managed to avoid the falling body of Team Sky’s Mark Cavendish on stage three – as teammate Elia Favilli spectacularly bunny-hopped the World champion – but had been brought down the day before in the incident that saw Rabobank’s Theo Bos lose control on the tight right-hander with 500 metres to go.
On that occasion Guardini got away with some chainring teethmarks in his forearm; this time he was taken to hospital for x-rays, but thankfully has sustained no broken bones.
“Everything ok!” he wrote on his Twitter page. “The pictures are negative as hoped for, just a nice bump that will pass as soon as possible! Stagger but never give up!”
Guardini will be back in action on stage five, between Modena and Fano, where the prodigy of Italian sprinting will be looking, once again, for his first Grand Tour victory.
In addition to Guardini, the Farnese Vini-Selle Italia team is also hunting stage victories through former Italian champion Filippo Pozzato – who would love to make up for a largely disappointing Classics campaign [second place in the Ronde van Vlaanderen notwithstanding – ed] with a repeat of his 2010 Porto Recanati stage – and Oscar Gatto, who will be seeking another stage to go with the one he took into Tropea last year.
The team also currently holds the blue climber’s jersey through Alfredo Balloni, who has been in both of the long distance breakaways of the race’s two road stages [and so also leads the Premio della Fuga competition – ed] and has been first over both of the 4th category climbs of the race so far.