Peron storms to seventh on Stage 1 in Denmark

2022 GP Kranj winner Andrea Peron made a great start to this year’s Tour of Denmark by sprinting into seventh place for Team Novo Nordisk after a long, hectic crash field opening stage.

Andrea Peron (ITA)
“It started pretty much as we expected. The breakaway went in the early kilometres, then we thought ‘ok, now it’s going to settle down,’ but we were wrong. It became quite hectic and nervous in the bunch, fast pace and subsequently, some of the guys got caught up in the crashes. I went down myself and banged my knee up but thankfully I’m ok and I managed to recover as the stage progressed.”

“The break was still up front when we hit the finishing circles in Koge. We didn’t catch them until inside the last 10km, and believe it or not there was another crash in the closing kilometres where a guy nearly came over the top of me and I was lucky to stay upright.”

“The sprint was hectic with the final corner coming 1.2km from the line. I knew there I had to be in a good position because if not it was gonna leave without me. I’m thankful I was able to get a good look at the run in to the line on the last circuit. Although I still felt I was a little bit too far back. However, when we kicked I felt good, picked a good wheel and was able to move through and finish in the top 10. I am happy we made a solid start because as everybody knows this is an important race for us but I think I had the legs for a podium. So we’ll see on the next sprint opportunity. “

Sports Director, Gennady Mikhaylov
“Well! I’m actually surprised that we came through and managed to get that result today. Most of if not all the team were involved in crashes. And there were a lot of crashes. This happens in cycling and sometimes it happens more often than not. Luckily none of our guys were seriously injured but it meant that Andrea had to ride a lot of the stage on his own and fight for his place in the bunch.”

“Yeah, for sure there were a lot of other teams in the same situation because a lot of guys went down so we can’t complain. Andrea is being incredibly consistent this season and today’s performance shows that he recovered well after the Tour de Pologne. It was very important for us to start well today, I cannot stress that enough. So we will raise a glass to Andrea tonight and a solid top 10.”