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Martina Fidanza second, Franziska Brausse fourth in Toscana Prologue

CERATIZIT WNT got the Giro Della Toscana off to a strong start with two riders finishing in the top four placings in the opening prologue in Italy. Having spent a stint in the hot seat, Martina Fidanza eventually finished second while teammate Franziska Brausse finished fourth.

The opening stage featured a flat, fast 2.8km circuit around Firenze which was to be raced at average speeds of just shy of 50km/h. Starting just over midway through the field, Fidanza raced to the fastest time so far, clocking 3’27” over the finish line. This put her in the hot seat with a nervous wait for the final riders to come through, before eventually just one rider, Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka, finished quicker - by just four seconds.

Just one second behind, Brausse finished in fourth place, only missing out on a podium spot by a few hundredths of a second. A result made even more impressive after travel delays saw her only arrive at the race today.

Lara Vieceli finished in a strong 13th place, with Lana Eberle not far behind in 18th, seeing all four of the team finishing in the top 20 on the stage.

After the finish, Martina Fidanza said of the stage: “I came here without a great preparation period following some health problems at the Europeans but fortunately in the last three days I’ve started to feel better and today I tried to do my best.

So this is a really good second place for me and means a lot for what I went through this year.

I really wanted to take the win for the team and also for Katie, but I was too far from first place in the end.”

CERATIZIT WNT DS Steven Seargant added: “Today we had a short prologue straight out and back in the beautiful setting of the horse track area in Firenze. We came with four riders to the start and we knew that we were capable of bringing home a good result.

“Lara Vieceli isn’t, per se, a time trialist but she brought home a great result. Lana Eberle was for a while second in the ranking until Martina Fidanza took the lead after her splendid ride. Leading the race at that point gave us a good reference point/indication of the time for Franzi Brausse and she crossed in joint third. Congrats to Agnesia Skalniak who took the win. We are happy with the results and will show the jerseys with pride tomorrow. Our hunger for achieving great results is still there.”