Mauro Brenner climbs to 3rd place on Giro Valle d’Aosta queen stage

Photo Credit: Giro Ciclistico della Valle d’Aosta

A brutal day of racing saw Mauro Brenner infiltrate a strong breakaway that would go on to fight of the win, with the first-year U23 riding brilliantly to claim third place in Fénis on the queen stage.

It was a fierce start to proceedings with Milan Kadlec attacking from the flag drop but his group was soon brought back. The attacks kept going and eventually the elastic snapped after a big battle, with Adam Seeman and Mauro Brenner making it into the move of around 14 riders. Working well together, the break continued to extend their gap over the bunch but the terrain was tough and Seeman had to let go of the group around halfway into the day alongside some other riders, joining Frank Aron Ragilo in the peloton.

Brenner continued to fight up front as the pace remained high and ramped up even further throughout the day. Heading into the penultimate climb they held a six minute lead over the peloton where things completely exploded and riders attacked. That meant the strong tempo continued and as they hit the final ten kilometres, all of which were uphill, the gap was down to two minutes. Brenner showed great legs as more of his breakaway companions dropped and found himself part of a front trio. Fighting to the end, he would take third place – a great result on an incredibly tough parcours.

“Finishing in third place at the queen stage is just amazing,” expressed Brenner. “We had a perfect day with Adam and me in the breakaway. I felt super strong so I stayed until the last climb in the front with the two other riders, but unfortunately after 150 kilometres of racing the two other riders were stronger than me. We can be super proud of how we rode today as a team and it also give me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.”

Team dsm-firmenich coach Joey van Rhee added: “We had a plan from the start of the day for each of the guys to go in the break. The first break was about 12 guys and we had Milan in there, then the second break went with Adam and Mauro. All of the guys were really active at the start which was good. At that moment they were riding well in the front and Frank was still in the bunch. We coached them from the car to try and save as much energy as they could for the whole day, because today was the queen stage. Adam dropped at the moment when Rafferty bridged to the front group, so the pace went higher and higher. Mauro stayed with the front group all the time and they went over the last climb with five of them I think. I said to him not to take any pulls on the front as Rafferty was riding for the GC so we could be smart there. On the final climb he then made it into the front three and fought as hard as he could to the finish. In the end two guys were stronger but we are really happy with how things went, and Mauro is happy too and he surprised himself, so it’s a good day for us.”