Rui Costa of the United Arab Emirates has become Portugal’s road racing champion after beating Daniel Mestre of W52/FC Porto on Sunday in the city of Gandra. It’s Costa’s time in the national road race title, after winning it in 2015. The 33-year-old, also two-time national time trial champion, in 2010 and 2013, and the 2013 world champion in road races after winning in Florence. Italy, striker of Spaniard Joaquim Rodríguez.
Francisco Campos, W52/FC Porto de Mestre teammate, held the last podium position, completing 28 seconds from 3rd place, while incumbent Jose Mendes, also now in W52 / FC Porto, did not reach the final.
“It was a very special victory. Rui and Ivo Oliveira went crazy for me today. Or they worked on the front lines when it was needed and made the right decisions,” Costa said in a press release from the Emirates UAE team. Praising his two young teammates.
“Winning here in Portugal is confusing when there are groups that oppose us, but in the end we work perfectly with each other,” he said. “I launched a very hard attack on the final kick and was content to finish it in the sprint.
“This weekend was a great fortune for the team, with Ivo winning the TT [national time title] and I the road race,” Costa said. “I couldn’t have improved.”
Meanwhile, the former driving force of Gazprom-RusVelo Sergey Shilov, who now races for the Portuguese continental team Aviludo-Louletano, won Sunday the title of the Russian road race in Samara, ahead of his separatist partner Igor Frolov, who also finished at the time Aleksandr. Vlasov from Astana in last year’s race. – with Nikita Martynov, 20, third, at 1:39.
Vlasov was unable to leave to protect his name after taking third place at Il Lombardia with teammate Jakob Fuglsang on Saturday.
A handful of national road racing championships have been held this weekend, some of them will take up this weekend, a week before the start of the Tour de France, as is often the case in Europe. However, championships in other nations, in addition to British and Dutch road races, have been cancelled or postponed until more are held due to coronavirus restrictions.
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