Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The Istrian Spring Trophy will be carried out in Croatia on March 12-15. The four-stage race is ranked UCI 2.2.

The Synergy Baku Cycling Project of Azerbaijan is going to the Istrian Spring Trophy with two former race winners. So, Markus Eibegger won the race in 2012 and Matej Mugerli in 2013. Dennis van Winden won the prologue of the race in 2009.

The race opens on Thursday with a 1.5 kilometer time trial prologue. The first stage finishes on a 4 km climb, according to Synergy Baku Sport Director Andrej Hauptman.

Stage two also has a 4 km climb to the finish, with the last 500 meters being very steep. The race ends with an expected bunch sprint in the final stage.

“We have a strong team for this race,” Hauptman said. “Dennis won the prologue in 2009. Max is in form. Markus already won this race and he is highly motivated. We all know that on this race every second counts. But we don’t know how Matej will be in his first race back after his illness.”

Synergy Baku team for the Istrian Spring Trophy includes Maksym Averin, Markus Eibegger, Ismail Iliasov, Matej Mugerli, Ioannis Tamouridis, and Dennis van Winden.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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