Tirreno-Adriatico: Lutsenko gets up from two crashes to win sprint
Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) got back up from two crashes during a solo breakaway to beat Primož Roglič and Adam Yates and win stage 4 of Tirreno-Adriatico to Fossombrone.
The Kazakh understandably dedicated his victory to himself, laughing about how he crashed on the slippy roads of Le Marche - the second time at just 1.5km from the finish – but some how got going again and found the speed to win the four-rider sprint.
“I was thinking I just had a win. The last 200 metres were a fight, so I'm happy to be able to pull it off,” Lutsenko explained.
“After the first crash I felt pretty bad but got going again, then after the second one, I didn’t understand why I went down but knew I just had to keep fighting. When they passed me at 600 metres to go, I got on Roglič’s wheel. I told myself to give it everything because I had to win after all the work I’ve done in training in recent months. Me winning shows you never know what can happen in racing.”
Lutsenko movingly dedicated each of his victories at the Tour of Oman to his wife after she suffered miscarriage in December, pointing to the sky. This victory was payback for his own personal suffering and for the hard work he has done in recent months to ensure he was on superb form for the early season.
“This win is for me, this pays me back for all my hard work. Other times I’ve put my arms up for other people but I think I deserved this one. When you watch racing on television you don’t see the hours and hours of training there is behind it, all the time spent at altitude camps and way from home,” he said.
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