After five weeks out of racing action Eddie Dunbar was
back at it again today, giving a very good account of himself in Settimana Internazionale
Coppi e Bartali (2.1) but also suffering bad luck.
The Italian stage race began with a split stage today; a
short morning road race and an afternoon TTT.
Dunbar was to the fore on the front during the road race
stage before finishing in the peloton in the same time as the winner.
The 22-year-old and team mate Dylan van Baarle were on
the front of the bunch for the closing stages of this morning’s 97.8km stage
starting and finishing in Gatteo.
It was won in a bunch sprint by Emīls Liepiņš (Wallonie-Bruxelles);
Eddie Dunbar at the front until about 4km to go and eventually finishing in 47th
place.
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The afternoon TTT was 13.3km and was again based around
Gatteo. Team Sky and their young Irish charge were unlucky when Dunbar suffered
a slipped chain early in the race.
And because it was a short all-out effort on a pan flat
course there was no prospect whatever of him getting back onto his team.
The team pressed on with five men instead of six to finish 2nd some 10 seconds behind Mitchelton-Scott. Gazprom-RusVelo was next, another 11 seconds back.
Results from the two stages mean Robert Stannard of
Mitchelton-Scott leads the race, equal on time with four of his team mates.
Then comes the Team Sky riders, filling the next four
places. However, as well as losing Dunbar very early in the stage, Michael
Golas also lost 40 seconds.
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Dunbar eventually finished on his own some 1:59 slower than his team; a set-back but still looking solid in his first outing back after crashing while racing in Portugal last month.
Team Sky directeur Oli Cookson struck an upbeat note
despite Eddie Dunbar’s misfortune.
"We’re very happy with the result as we lost Eddie
on the second corner as he dropped his chain on a bumpy, cobbled surface,” he
said.
“We decided not to wait as on such a short time trial you
can lose a lot of time very quickly, so we did it with just five guys.
“So considering that, we were happy to lose just 10
seconds to Mitchelton-Scott in the TTT as they had a very strong line-up.
"We did a recon yesterday where we came in a day
early, sorted our order out and worked on how we would cope with one rider
less.
“Our main objective for both stages 1a and 1b was to
safeguard our GC hopes, and we took the initiative in the morning and
controlled the race.
“We have seen in previous years that a break can take a
significant amount of time on stage 1a. The stages that are coming will suit
our guys.
“And the guys did a splendid (TTT) ride. We were 17
seconds faster than last year, so a good improvement and this puts us in a good
place going forwards."
The race continues under Sunday, with four more road stages to come and plenty of terrain that can suit Eddie Dunbar.
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