Ramunas Navardauskas has taken the first win for the new Bahrain Merida Pro Cycling Team after proving fastest in the third stage individual time-trial at the Vuelta a San Juan.
The Lithuanian rider clocked a time of 14:03 on the 11.9km course, beating Bauke Mollema by three seconds with Mollema’s Trek Segafredo teammate Matthias Brandle finishing third at seven seconds. Navardauskas now takes over the race lead by three seconds from Mollema.
“My legs are light and I’m really relaxed. Probably are the victory effects!” Navardauskas said afterwards.
“Looking back, I was not thinking to win,” he explained. “I just wanted to give my best and try to make a good race. We had tried several times the route and was a kind of time trial where you had to push very very strong”.
“We are very proud for this first victory in the history of Team Bahrain Merida,” said Directeur Sportif Paolo Slongo. “No doubt it’s a success that has a particular value, but to tell you the truth I’m not so surprised”.
“In fact I thought that a specialist like Ramunas could make a good result, but I would also like to highlight the good performance of the team that put four athletes in the top 13. It means that we are going in the right direction and we worked well in this last period”.
