Hard going for TNN on Valenciana Queen Stage

03 February 2024

Queen stages are never easy and that’s partly why they are regal, but today’s mountainous decider at the Volta a la Communitat Valenciana was a monster and the Team Novo Nordisk riders battled their way over the climbs to the finish line high above the Mediterranean Sea to finish with two men lost to crashes and one more stage to go on Sunday.

Both Filippo Ridolfo and Gerd de Keijzer were forced to abandon the race due to unfortunate crashes, but thankfully neither sustained serious injuries and will be both back racing again soon.

Sports Director Gennady Mikhaylov:

“Really tough day out, in many ways and not just the parcours. Stage races are often like this, a bad day follows a good day and you have to get back up again, refocus and try again the next day. The main thing is that Filippo and Gerd are ok.”

“Todays queen stage was never going to be a stage that suited us, yet the guys still tried to get in the breakaway, but it was a tense first hour and took a long time for an attack to take shape and by the time it did we were deep into the climbs.”

Lucas Dauge:

“It was an extremely hard stage with a lot elevation today and a steep and quite relentless final climb to the finish. But I enjoyed it, the first hour was super fast because everyone try to go in the breakaway, but nothing stuck. We tried with both David and Filippo but, today no luck.”

“The Volta a la Comminitat Valenciana is good race to start the season especially after our recent training camp in the area and I feel like it’s been good to train on these toads before racing on them. I still need to improve my shape and have some work ahead to find my best legs. But that’s normal at this early stage of the season.”