Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Being part of the Europe tour, the Istrian Spring Trophy (2.2) was held in Croatia on March 12-15.

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

Member of the Synergy Baku Cycling Project, Markus Eibegger has won the overall title in the competition, giving the Synergy Baku Cycling Project its first European stage race victory. The Austrian climber won the race’s Queen Stage on March 15, taking the race lead, which he defended.

Eibegger won the race by eight seconds over Sergey Nikolaev of Itera-Katusha, with Silvio Herklotz (Team Stölting) third.

With such a narrow lead, and bonus seconds on tap, the team had to work hard to defend Eibegger’s lead. Ioannis Tamouridis who was in a break group early in the stage, came to a mass sprint towards the end. Eibegger finished safely in the pack, to claim the overall win.

“It was a hard race, as expected,” said Markus Eibegger. “The Russians put a lot of pressure on us, but Tamo, Dennis, Max and Ismail could fight back. Tamo went into a break group and saved the dangerous bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints for me. Dennis and Max tried for a good result in the final sprint. We can be very proud of our gains over the past weeks in view of our Race to Rio."

“We have numerous goals as a team this season. Eibi’s overall victory this week is excellent, a welcomed result. I'm very pleased with his personal performance," said team manager David McQuaid.

“But it also shows what we can do with discipline and team performance. It sets the team up nicely now, with high confidence going into the next part of our Spring calendar.”

--

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz