Cycling – Buchmann begins with a handicap – a minute behind – is a sport

Turin (AFP) – On the lively streets of Turin, Emanuel Buchmann starts the Giro d’Italia 104 almost as expected.

The hope holder lost in his first German podium appearance in the history of the tour a total of 55 seconds to the Italian winner of the day and world champion Filippo Jana in the test opening time of more than 8.6 kilometers, thus finishing 104th place. Even compared to his rivals in the overall standings, Buchmann lost a few seconds and now has to make up for it in the mountains.

This deficit is not surprising, since the 59 kg climbing specialist is nothing but a good experience. For this reason, Buchmann does not begin the tour of France the least mountainous in the summer. Losing seconds is painful anyway: Belgian contestant Rimko Evenbuell (0:19 minutes back), Simon Yates (Great Britain / 0:38), former tour champion Egan Bernal (Colombia / 0:39) and veteran warrior Vincenzo Nepali (Italy / 0) : 41) All faster.

Buchmann, who finished fourth in the Tour de France in 2019, wants to be the first German to climb the podium on Tour Italy. The profile suits a climbing specialist. More than 47,000 vertical meters on the 3,479.9 kilometer route from Turin to Milan must be covered.

“I know I have what it takes to get to the podium,” Ravensberger said before the start. And if you can do that, victory is usually not far off. Buchmann feels ready for the big coup: “I am ready to be precise. We are exactly where we wanted to be at the beginning of the Giro.” In shape is absolutely good, if not better than in the Tour de France a couple of years ago. At that time, Buchmann was in fourth place.

The captain of the German team Bora-hansgrohe has to score points in the mountains. He had no chance at the time trial. Gana, who had already won all three trials at the Giro last year, defeated his compatriot Eduardo Aveni by ten seconds and was 13 seconds behind the Norwegian Tobias Voss. “I’m happy to be back,” Ganna said. “I said to myself: 100 percent full throttle.”

Also striking was the appearance of Evinbol, who came back nearly nine months after breaking a pelvis on a tour of Lombardy and finished seventh. “It was very moving at the start of the road,” Evinbuell said. “Tears were in my eyes. It means a lot for me to race again. I’m proud of my performance.” Max Walshid was the eighth best cyclist out of eight professional German cyclists, also 19 seconds behind.

At Giro, cycling is also somewhat normal. Spectators were allowed to walk the track in Turin, albeit with a mask and distance. In Italy there has already been mitigation recently, although infection values ​​are at the level of Germany.

On Sunday, runners can play first. The second section of more than 179 kilometers from Stupinigi leads to Novara on flat terrain.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210508-99-521018 / 3