18 March 2014
IAM Cycling
Under the sun and heat (24°) of San Benedetto del Tronto, much of the peloton was ready to smile.
Adriano Malori (Movistar) smiled perhaps the widest having been able to secure the stage victory while Alberto Contador (Tinkoff Saxo) took the overall. IAM Cycling has finished the week with an excellent success in the form of the teams first World Tour victory thanks to the fast finish of Matteo Pelucchi.
Kjell Carlström, working as directeur sportif along with Marcello Albasini, is convinced that the lessons learned during the seven stages of the Race between Two Seas as well as the stage two success will benefit the team throughout the season.
Tirreno launched our season. Matteo Pelucchi unlocked our counter with his stunning victory in a very competitive sprint. That is very important for the whole group. We tried to do it again on Monday; the guys worked to help him rejoin the peloton, but Matteo didnt have the legs. He is still struggling to get over the bumps. We are also very pleased with our 12th place in the team time trial. Considering it was our first time racing in the discipline, we performed on par with some of the best, and now have a good foundation with which to prepare for Worlds.
Kjell Carlström made no secret, though, of the fact that not everything went according to plan for the team throughout the week.
Not being able to bring Vicente Reynes deprived us of an essential element of our team before the race had even started. Then Thomas Löfkvist was feeling bad all week and finally abandoned on Monday, which disrupted not only Löfkvists plans, but the whole teams. We had focused on working toward a top 5 place in the overall with Thomas. But everything was gone. Honestly, Thomas already had an inkling that something was wrong at Strade Bianche a few days earlier.
That did not help, unfortunately. And we had no real alternative for the GC since Marcel Wyss is not yet at his target fitness level. We talked about it during the preparation for the season.
