Great team effort by our riders in the opening TTT of the Tour Colombia 2020

Race: Tour Colombia – Stage 1 (Team Time Trial)

Start/Finish: Tunja/Tunja, Colombia

Distance: 16.7 kilometers

Note: Team Novo Nordisk started the Tour Colombia with only five riders after losing Andrea Peron to gastrointestinal issues.

Pavel Cherkasov (Sport Director)

The guys raced as a team today. You could tell from the moment that they went down the ramp that they were thinking as a team.

We unexpectedly started as only five riders, which is a hard detail to learn the morning of your first race of the season, especially with losing someone as strong as Andrea.

In the pre-race meeting, we focused on teamwork and managing the headwind that we knew to expect from the start. We broke the course down into segments. Each rider knew what to do and when/where. Everyone performed their jobs exactly as planned, and I’m proud of how we raced today.

David Lozano (ESP)

There was great teamwork out there and I was glad about how we did. I positioned myself between our two neo-pros, Oliver and Ulugbek, and we were able to communicate well and race together while out on the road.

Ulugbek Saidov (UZB)

This was my first team time trial at this level and with Team Novo Nordisk’s men’s pro team. There were definitely nerves at the beginning, but that is true for every bike race. I was proud of how we did out there—it really felt like we rode together as a group.

Stage 1 Results:

1st – EF PRO Cycling – 0:18:01

2nd – Deceuninck Quick Step

3rd – Team INEOS

26th – Team Novo Nordisk

Next Up:

On Wednesday, the world’s first all-diabetes professional cycling team will continue to show what’s possible with diabetes on Stage 2 at the Tour Colombia with a 152.4 km race that starts in Paipa and finishes in Duitama (home to the 1995 World Championships).

(Photos: ©Bettiniphotos)