Elia Viviani (Sky) did little to hide his disappointment at the manner in which he missed out on Omnium gold at the Track World Championships in London earlier this month, and his mood can hardly have lightened when he reported back for road duty at Tirreno-Adriatico only to find the man who claimed the rainbow jersey, Fernando Gaviria, still standing in his way.
“I lost a really close last sprint at the Track Worlds and that stayed in my head these past few weeks. You don’t forget that in a day or a week. And the road races haven’t helped me – when you go to Tirreno and Gaviria beats you by two bike lengths, for sure it’s not the best thing that you want,” Viviani told reporters in Oostduinkerke on Wednesday after winning stage 2 of the Three Days of De Panne.
“Last night I arrived at a point and said ‘Either I react, or I stop the first part of my season now and come back for Giro d’Italia.’ And well, I think I reacted really, really well.”
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The second stage of the Three Days of De Panne, which takes the peloton from the Flemish Ardennes back to the North Sea coast, traditionally offers the sprinters an opportunity to show their wares. Most observers had the stage billed as a duel between Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) and race leader Alexander Kristoff (Katusha), but they had to make do with second and third, respectively, behind Viviani.
“This win was very important for me, and when you win ahead of two champions like that, it adds value to my win for sure,” Viviani said. “It comes at a time when I wasn’t on top form, my head was down because the results weren’t coming.
“I really needed to take a win in this moment because after Track Worlds I didn’t get the results I needed in Tirreno, in San Remo, in Gent-Wevelgem – the races where I want to do well in the next few years.”
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