"We achieved our goal, everyone is happy" - Alexey Lutsenko successfully defends Giro d'Abruzzo lead on final stage

Despite some attacking riding by UAE Team Emirates, Alexey Lutsenko held firm on the final stage of the 2024 Giro d'Abruzzo this Friday afternoon.

With the Giro d'Abruzzo replacing the Giro di Sicilia on the UCI calendar, Lutsenko actually made it an Italian stage race success for the second straight year. “Everything went as planned. Yesterday we took a victory at the toughest stage and today we needed to control the race, in the beginning we did not let the gap of the first breakaway grow, it was a minute, maximum a minute and a half," reflects the Kazakh National Champion to the Astana Qazaqstan Team website post-race.

"The guys worked for 100% today, it’s especially pleasant to acknowledge that we also had young riders from the development team who had a proper race, and who competed at the same level with other more experienced riders," Lutsenko continues, having joined an attack with Pavel Sivakov and George Bennett, although the other two to fight for the stage as he rolled over the line in third as overall winner. "With 50 kilometres before the finish I joined the attacking riders in order to also control the situation and protect our leader’s jersey. We achieved our goal, everyone is happy.”

“When Lutsenko is racing, it is always great, he is a protagonist, a team leader. Here we had also our young talents who were highly motivated to support the captain of the team. Today in the morning we were talking about the importance of our teamwork and I can say that the team performed good… not even good, but perfect!" assesses a delighted sports director, Giuseppe Martinelli. "I enjoyed it. It is a beautiful victory, especially before our next races: Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Tour de Romandie.”