Mauro Schmid came into the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali stage race riding the momentum of the strongest early season of his career. The Swiss road and time trial champion had already taken a pair of wins in Oman—the Muscat Classic and Stage 3 of the Tour of Oman. He also finished second overall at the Tour Down Under in Australia.
Schmid added to that list on March 29 when he outsprinted race leader Axel Laurance (Ineos Grenadiers) on his all-new Propel Advanced SL with a CADEX Max 50 WheelSystem to win the fifth and final stage of the five-day stage race held in northeastern Italy.
With just two seconds separating the two riders heading into the final stage, the 165.5km route from Cormons to Gemona del Friuli was set to be a tense battle, culminating on the second and final ascent of the Cat.1 Monte Stella, with its summit 17km from the finish line. An early breakaway was allowed a slender advantage in the opening kilometers before Team Jayco AlUla made their intentions clear and moved to the head of the peloton to take control.
The Australian squad went on the offensive and used their strength in numbers as Alan Hatherly, the XCO World Champion, launched an attack up the final ascent of Monte Stella. Schmid jumped across to his teammate, with the pair quickly opening up a gap on the reduced group behind. However, the race dynamic changed as race leader Laurance bridged across to the Team Jayco AlUla pair, teeing up a tense finish.
Laurance had twice got the better of Schmid in the opening four stages, but Schmid turned the tables on his rival when it mattered most, snatching the stage win on the line and the valuable 10 bonus seconds to seal the overall victory in dramatic style. Third place on the stage was enough for Hatherly to join his teammate on the general classification podium, finishing third overall.
“I think it was the perfect ending to this week,” said Schmid. “Being up there with Alan at the end was really fun and the whole team rode amazing today. I'm really happy to finally repay them with a victory, winning the general classification like this is super nice.”
“When I saw Laurance come back, I was a bit surprised at first because I thought we still had a good gap," he added. "I tried to attack once, but I knew that section wasn't difficult enough to make the difference. At that point, I just had to trust my sprint. I knew that today would be a completely different sprint, after a full climb, compared to the ones on other days, where it was more of a bunch sprint. Today we were against each other, it wasn't about positioning. Alan did a really great lead-out for me, keeping the pace high so I could bide my time. Today was another very long sprint and I'm happy to have won it.”