UAE Team Emirates previews the 2018 Worlds course

The UAE Team Emirates sports directors Mario Scirea, Marco Marzano and Paolo Tiralongo took advantage of the final stage of the Tour of the Alps to preview with the riders a large part of the 2018 Worlds circuit in Innsbruck, Australia.

Mark Padun (Bahrain-Merida) won the fifth stage and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) confirmed his overall victory. Afterwards, Fabio Aru, Simone Petilli and Valerio Conti extended the day by 30 minutes to ride the tough final climb of the Worlds called the ‘The Hell’.

“I have to say that that climb is truly demanding,” Aru said. “The gradients are high right from the start of the 2700 metres, but the last 500 metres are very hard. It will be important to evaluate carefully the gearing and with this in mind, it was very useful to come and see the climb. 

It will be a hard worlds, one for climbers, and obviously, I’m happy with this since the Italy can count on a competitive team.”

Aru had closed the five-day Tour of the Alps sixth overall earlier at 1-19 minutes from Pinot.

“I’m very satisfied with where my form’s at in this moment,” he added. “There’s just over a month until the end the end of the Giro d’Italia and it’ll be important to get there with much energy.

 These five days were very demanding and I came off a long period of attitude training so I paid a little sometimes like today. Besides that, I was always active in the race, and this is a good sign with an eye on the Giro.”

Stage 5 results:

1 Mark Padun (Ukr) Bahrain-Merida 4:16:10

2 George Bennett (NZl) LottoNL-Jumbo +5”

3 Jan Hirt (Cze) Astana Pro Team +6”

13 Fabio Aru (Ita) UAE Team Emirates +38”

Final overall classification

1 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 14:12:29

2 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Bahrain-Merida +15”

3 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 15”

4 Christopher Froome (GBr) Team Sky +16”

5 George Bennett (NZl) LottoNL-Jumbo +1′

6 Fabio Aru (Ita) UAE Team Emirates +1’19”