Alexey Lutsenko wins Memorial Marco Pantani
The Kazakh champion Alexey Lutsenko won the Italian one-day race (1.1) Memorial Marco Pantani (193.3 km). On the streets of Cesenatico Lutsenko outsprinted Marc Hirschi and Pavel Sivakov. This is the second success of Alexey Lutsenko in Memorial Marco Pantani after his win in 2019.
A group of riders went away shortly after the start in Riccione, but Astana Qazaqstan Team riders made a great effort to chase the break and to bring it back just before the decisive part.
“I want to thank all my teammates for an amazing job during the whole day. Firstly, Gleb Brussenskiy and Yuriy Natarov and later Gianni Moscon, Harold Tejada and Harold Martin Lopez made a huge work for me to control the breakaway and then to provide me a perfect position for the attack to join the right leading group. Also, Simone Velasco was always next to me until the moment I went away with five more riders. We did it in a right way as a team and I am really proud of my teammates”, – said Alexey Lutsenko.
On the local laps with Crocetta (1.5 km, 5.5%) and Longiano (1.1 km, 7.6%) climbs a group of six riders broke away clear, immediately opening a solid gap. Alexey Lutsenko was there, doing an active race and always staying in front.
“On the final lap at the steepest part it was Marc Hirschi, who attacked and me and Pavel Sivakov followed this attack. Well, we remained in three and we continued working hard to the finish, not allowing the chasers to bridge back to our group. In the final I tried to attack, but also my rivals tried to anticipate the sprint, however we arrived all together in Cesenatico and I just did my best in sprint, taking this nice victory”, – added Alexey Lutsenko.
For Alexey Lutsenko this is his sixth success in 2023 after a stage and the overall at the Tour of Sicily, individual time trial and the road race at Kazakhstan National Championships and the Circuit de Getxo.
“I am really happy to win today, and it is so nice to get this win on the birthday of Alexandr Vinokurov, our General Manager. I think this is a nice gift to him on his 50th anniversary. But, at the same time this is a significant success for the whole team, I believe it will help us to keep our motivation high for the last months of the season. I felt good today and it feels like my form is growing up. It is really good before such an important event as Asian Games. I hope to come to this competition on my 100% form. After a few days I am going to come back to Italy for some more racing before flying to China together with our National Team”, – concluded Alexey Lutsenko.
Photo credit: @SprintCycling