Robert Power had a day to remember, or not, at the 110th Il Lombardia in Italy today. The 21 year-old was supposed to ride in support of team leader Esteban Chaves but after missing the start of the race he just went training instead.
By Brian Canty
It wasn’t quite the start to life in the WorldTour pro peloton Australian starlet Robert Power had been hoping for.
The 21-year-old neo-pro was in the biggest race of his life yesterday at the 110th Il Lombardia… or at least he should have been in the biggest race of his life!
Rewind 24 hours and Power was propped at a café in Girona after a 4½ hour training ride when a call came through on his mobile phone from an Italian number.
It was his Orica-BikeExchange manager telling him Simon Yates had come down with illness and Power was in the eight-man line-up for Lombardy.
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The Perth youngster was quickly flown to the team's base where he spent the night with the squad.
Tactics are gone over and it’s agreed that Esteban Chaves is their plan 'A' for the race.
The usual pre-race routine was followed yesterday morning with warm-up and sign-on all done in plenty time.
The race was scheduled to roll out at 10.50am but that was from kilometre zero rather than the time for the neutralised roll-out.
Power had gotten back on the team bus to wait for the start and was apparently on his own relaxing.
He exited the bus about to set off for the start but began to panic when he saw none of his team mates around and the road open and crowds and vehicles everywhere.
All of a sudden it dawned on him that the race had started. A frantic chase after the peloton followed through civilian traffic on the open roads.
But not even such a talented and strong rider could latch onto the back of the peloton. He would end the race prematurely and be listed as a DNF, going out training instead of racing.
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#iLombardia 1/2 Unfortunately neo-pro Rob Power signed in today but rolled up to the line too late & missed the official start of the race.
— ORICA-BikeExchange (@ORICA_BE) October 1, 2016
2/2 He chased heroically but was unable to make it to the peloton. Disappointed he won't feature in this amazing race but he'll be back
— ORICA-BikeExchange (@ORICA_BE) October 1, 2016
It's all the more unfortunate because of what Power has had to contend with this year.
He has suffered with an injury believed to be bruising on the bone, though team doctors have struggled to definitely ascertain what the problem is.
The start of his season was delayed until he raced the Tour of Britain. And he looked to be winding down for the year when the aforementioned Yates became ill on Thursday, prompting his late call-up!
But it was all soon forgotten when Chaves popped up and won the race for the team anyway.
There were two Irish riders in the race; former winner Dan Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) was 48th some 15:57 down and Nicolas Roche of Team Sky was listed as a non-finisher.
What Power normally does....
Winning GP Sportivi di Poggiana (UCI 1.2U), August 2014
Still, while he may have been left embarrassed, there is every reason to believe he'll be making the headlines for the right reasons sooner than later.
Last year he was overall winner of the Giro Ciclistico della Valle d'Aosta Mont Blanc (2.2U) in the Alps against some of the best young riders in the world as an U23.
He won the prologue and held the yellow jersey for all six stages.
Also last year he won the youth classification in the Herald Sun Tour in his homeland as well as taking 6th overall and 2nd in the mountains classification.
In 2014 he was 2nd overall at the Tour de l'Avenir and was U23 Oceania road race champion.
He also won the Gran Premio Sportivi di Poggiana (UCI 1.2U) and the GP Capodarco - Comunità di Capodarco (1.2) in Italy in the same week and was 2nd in the Australian U23 road race champs.
So he’s well able to be on time and he’s well able to move very quickly indeed on a bicycle.
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