Great climbing by Castroviejo
09 March 2013

Tirreno-Adriatico (st. 4)

Basque rider makes top Movistar Team performance, astonished at mountain top-finish in Prati di Tivo to place 8th in a star-studded GC, with Capecchi also within the best 15

The first mountain stage in the 2013 Tirreno-Adriático -a 170km trek starting at Narni and finishing atop Prati di Tivo (14km, 7% average)- saw big time gaps as the main riders in this year’s ‘Due Mari’ race –Contador, Froome, Evans, Nibali, Horner, Rodríguez…- put themselves up to the fore, with team Sky controlling all attacks by Contador and other big names in the ending part of the climb.

Eros Capecchi and Jonathan Castroviejo made a first big selection of about twenty riders, a group that would split even further as Castroviejo courageously resisted on the wheel of the main favourites. The big kick from Froome (SKY), winner of the day’s stage, would open the gaps for the Basque rider, who stopped the clock at 1.03 at the finish line. Around 40 seconds behind, Capecchi came to keep all two Movistar Team’s references within the best fifteen overall.

Castroviejo is now 8th, just over a minute behind the new ‘Maglia Azzurra’, Michal Kwiatkowski (OPQ), while Intxausti sits in 15th, less than two minutes back. Two long, hard stages are still to come before Tuesday’s closing iTT (9km) at San Benedetto del Tronto, the first of those coming tomorrow with 230 kilometers from Ortona to Chieti and a difficult, uphill finish following the infamous Passo Larciano (12km, 7.5%), just 40k from the finish.