A couple of months after a serious accident while training in Murcia, Alberto Dainese sprinted to the win in the third stage of Pays de la Loire Tour, France.
4.04.2024
After two fifth places in the first two stages of Pays de la Loire Tour, Alberto Dainese took advantage of a perfect team work to win in front of Marijn Van den Berg EF Education - Easypost and Sam Bennett.
"The final lap was really hectic" Alberto said. "The first time we came into the circuit we said “WOW, it’s gonna be hectic”, but the guys rode super well. We were always in good position and they did a perfect job. This win is really special and it’s so nice to see that all the hard work done in Winter finally paid off. We started the season well in Mallorca working on my lead out train, but unfortunately I had a bad accident which stopped me from racing for two months. More than this, my grandma passed away recently, so my thoughts are for her.”
Kurt Bergin-Taylor, Alberto’s coach is very happy with his rider's win: “It was obviously a big set back when he crashed in Spain as he was in great shape after a perfect Winter and ready to invest in building his leadout train. This wasn’t then possible so the group had to adjust and build without him. We decided we wanted to have Robin (Froidevaux) with Alberto at Pays de la Loire Tour to help build that chemistry and trust whilst his other leadout riders have just finished an intense classics block.
At first of course Alberto was upset after the crash and needed a few weeks to fully recover. He didn’t need much motivation after the initial rest period as he’s a true professional and he was able to start training in a good way the last four weeks once we got over the issues he had with the knee as a consequence of the crash.”