Sixth for Peron on final stage in Taiwan to cap solid week

A positive week of racing came to a close for Team Novo Nordisk at the Tour de Taiwan with captain Andrea Peron rounding off his comeback from injury with sixth place in the final stage.

After Hamish Beadle set the tone with a top ten on the first day of racing, the world’s first all-diabetes professional cycling team held the consistency, with Peron taking another top ten on stage three before strong displays by David Lozano and neo pro Nathan Smith on the climbs led the team into the sprint final on stage five.

Head sports director Massimo Podenzana:

“Three top tens and some good signs from the guys for the next races means we can go away content with our work here. Our young first year professionals Doriand and Nathan both rode very well and demonstrated they are eager to learn and develop.”

“I’m happy for Andrea, he’s not raced since October last year in Turkey, so to come back and be straight into the mix in the sprints is positive. He was a little boxed in today and just missed out on the top five.”

Andrea Peron:

“The race split on the first climb today, we expected that the GC contenders would try something early, so I made sure to be close to the front at the start. That was a good choice because there was around 30 of us out front and the rest of the bunch didn’t see us again until the finish.”

“It was hard, but as I said at the start of the week, I felt I would get better everyday and that’s how it went. I was blocked a bit there in the last 200m but I still managed to keep the speed as I tried to go around and it’s been good to finally get back to racing and I’m looking ahead to France now and a busy spring.”