The opening of the Internazionali d’Italia Series offered one of the most uncertain Men’s Open races in the recent history of the circuit. Since the start, the race has always been conducted by a group of a dozen athletes, with frequent upheavals and all the strongest protagonists vying for the top positions: from World Champion Sarrou to Forster, from Carod to Koretzky to the Italians Kerschbaumer and Luca Braidot – the latter until a puncture spoiled his plans – and the young Simone Avondetto.
The decisive move was made by Lars Forster (Scott-Sram) at the end of the penultimate lap, after having previously attempted an unsuccessful acceleration. This time no one was able to keep up with him, with Victor Koretzky and Milan Vader (both KMC-Orbea) striving to bridge over again, closely watched by Gerhard Kerschbaumer (Specialized).
The finale was a solo by Forster, who wore the leader’s jersey improving a truly impressive score when it comes to Internazionali d’Italia: for the former European Champion, this is the third success (after Montichiari in 2016 and San Marino in 2019) out of four starts in the race.
“Winning like this on my season debut is fantastic,” said Forster. “The race was very fast, but tactically it developed just as I had hoped. After looking for a first acceleration to understand how the others were responding, I sat on the wheels a bit to save energy for the finale. Italy and Andora offered us this wonderful start to the season, in a technically beautiful and well-organized race: we hope to continue like this.”
Behind Forster came Victor Koretzky (+ 0.11), Milan Vader (+ 0.14), David Valero (BH-Templo, + 0.15), and Gerhard Kerschbaumer (+ 0.16), fifth and best of the Italians.
