Stage 3 Report（English）
TOUR OF JAPAN 2015 Stage 3（Mino／139.4km）
Number of visitors：26,000
Temperature：31℃
Weather: Fine weather
Nicolos Marini victorious in Stage 3!
Mino,20th May 2015 – OHAYO GOZAIMASU!
The Mino stage presented itself with 96 starters today in the old town of Mino City with amazing architecture from the 19th century; the riders were paraded through the town for a total of 4 km before starting the race. A strong 26,000 spectator crowd made sure that the riders received a good send off with perfect weather conditions complementing the departure.
The race saw immediate action from the 0 km marker with 2 riders making an escape at the early stage of the race before Timothy Roe (Drapac Professional Cycling) rode solo throughout before being caught at the 110 km marker. They were a few attempts to try and go for the break again after the peloton caught up with the Drapac rider, but the peloton, active as ever was quick to bridge any attempts before a bunch sprint concluded today’s stage.
The sprint was won by Vini Fantini’s Nicolas Marini with a total time of 3’’32’’18 beating RTS SANTIC Racing Team’s Boris Shpilevskiy and Andrea Palini from Skydive Dubai Pro Cycling Team.
Nicolas Marini’s win makes it his first professional win of the year for 2015.
Tomorrow’s stage Minami Shinshu 510 meters will see the riders tackling the 123.6 km course and the famous hairpin curve after steep downhill of south Shinshu called T.O.J. Corner. The riders will be completing 10 laps with a climb of 510 meters with a gradient higher than 10% before coming for its arrival at the Matsuo Stadium.
Comments from the riders as follows:
Rafaa Chtioui, Skydive Dubai Pro Cycling Team
What are your conclusions for today?
“Today, the race was pretty quiet for the big teams and everyone had a chance to go for the sprint. It wasn’t our objective for the sprint today however we were keen to keep and defend the green jersey and that was our objective. My team did great today to help me defend the jersey and I thank my team for that”
Timothy Roe, Drapac Professional Cycling
You had a hard race and you broke away for 5 laps solo. Tell us what was going through your head throughout? Is this a sign for Drapac to be gunning for the mountains since the race is heading there in a couple of days?
“ Originally I got into a break with one other person and I was hoping for more but he got called back into the bunch after his team told him to do so and I was left there alone and I just kept going for the King Of The Mountains points and it wasn’t too bad for me. I will be definitely going for the King of Mountains jersey and I’ll see how my form is after today. I am going to be a little bit tired tomorrow but we have one of our guys in the GC and we’ll keep going to get as many results as we can”
Nicolas Marini, Nippo-Vini Fantini
Brilliant win today Nicolas, talk us through your last 10 km and the tactics for your team?
“My team was great today and they did a good job on the climb. They took it ahead of the group and I followed them on the final downhill. The last kilometer the Drapac guys started the sprint and in the last 100 meters I decided to go and start my sprint and I won the stage. It was a great victory for me”
