Marco Brenner opens Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali with victory

Marco Brenner won the first stage of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali 2024. The promising German from Tudor Pro Cycling managed to stay out of the clutches of the chasing pack with a late exit. Brenner is also the pole leader in the Italian stage race.

Today there was not only racing in the Tour of Catalunya. The peloton also thundered A to B cycling on Italian soil, with the opening stage taking place at Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali in and around Pesaro. There was a fair amount of climbing along the way, but with twenty kilometers to go most of the climbing was completed. The fast men certainly didn't look without a chance on this short stage of just under 110km, although the attackers saw their chance too.

Four Knights form an early break
James Whelan (Q36.5), Eric Vetter (Team Polti-Cometa), Luc Vertgen (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Manuel Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) were the attackers today. These four adventurers managed to make a maximum progress of about two minutes. Turns out that wasn't enough to see him through to the end. In the peloton, the pace was set by EF Education-EasyPost and the United Arab Emirates.

This was not without reason. The American formation took an offensive approach in the final. With only twenty kilometers remaining, Jefferson Alexander Cepeda decided to try his luck by jumping away from the peloton. However, the Ecuadorian climber from EF Education-EasyPost was not given much space and was soon caught by the ropes again. A subsequent attempt by Paul Double achieved further progress.

Photo: Cor Foss

Brenner's late exit was a success
The British climber, competing for the Polti-Cometa team, rode alone to the remaining leaders Whelan, Wertgen and Tarozzi. This quartet led ahead of the peloton for a while, but were caught in the final fifteen kilometres. Can we then get ready for the sprint? Visma | In any case, Lease a Bike seems to be aiming for speed racing, but may not have taken into account the late retirement of Marco Brenner.

The promising German climber, who has been competing in the Tudor Pro Cycling Championship since this year, jumped clear of the front group in a brilliant moment, built up a good lead and that was enough to take his first professional win. Brenner stayed out of the clutches of rookies Matteo Maloselli and Gino Berkmuz thus giving his team another win. Brenner, who started his career at (then) DSM, is of course also the first leader.