Viviani victorious as Giro D’Italia ends last Israel stage in Eilat
First three stages of ‘Big Start Israel’ wrap up, and cyclists fly back to Italy to resume prestigious road race
Italian Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) won the second stage in a row of the Giro D’Italia on Sunday’s 229-kilometer (142-mile) race from Beersheba to Eilat.
The race was the third and final stage to be held in Israel. On Sunday evening, the riders and support teams will fly to Sicily for a rest day on Monday and resume the tour on May 8.
Viviani, who also won the stage from Haifa to Tel Aviv on Saturday, finished the race in 5 hours, 2 minutes, and 9 seconds.
Sacha Modolo (Team EF Education) and Sam Bennet (Bora – Hansgrohe) finished in second and third place, respectively. Israel Cycling Academy rider Guillaume Boivin won the intermediate sprint of Mitzpe Ramon and came in third for the Faran River sprint.
Sprints are short, challenging parts of the race that give riders who win them strategic advantages such as time bonuses or the coveted colored jerseys denoting their prowess in climbing, or other aspects.
Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) is in the overall lead of the Giro D’Italia with the fastest cumulative time, wearing the coveted pink jersey.
Sunday’s route was the second-longest leg of the 21-day race. Mitzpe Ramon, at 840 meters (2,756 feet) above sea level, was the highest point on the course, after which riders descended along hairpin turns into the Ramon crater. The climb out of the Faran River, at kilometer 127, was the steepest part of the ride.
After two days of unseasonably hot temperatures, the heat wave that blanketed the country over the past few days finally broke Saturday night, although temperatures still reached around 35°C (around 95°F) in the desert on Sunday.
Cyclists also worried about the wind, which reached up to 35 kph (20 mph) in the stretch leading up to Eilat.
Thousands of enthusiastic Israelis lined the urban time trial in Jerusalem on Friday.
On Saturday, fans gathered along the coastal route as cyclists passed landmarks such as the ancient cities of Acre and Caesarea before ending the race in a carnival of pink in Tel Aviv’s Charles Clore park.
Many in the country associated with organizing the Big Start Israel gave a sigh of relief as the riders crossed the finish line on Sunday, capping off the most complicated, expensive, and logistically challenging sporting event Israel has ever hosted, according to Sports and Culture Minister Miri Regev.
The three-day event cost NIS 120 million ($33 million), mostly funded by Sylvan Adams, an amateur cyclist and real estate mogul from Canada who moved to Israel two years ago.
“This race has exceeded my expectations,” Adams said after Saturday’s race. “Israelis are the greatest fans in the world.”
In its 101-year history, the Giro has previously opened a dozen times outside Italy but never outside Europe. Its arrival in Israel is the result of the lobbying efforts of Adam’s idea to hold the start of the race in Israel to coincide with Israel’s marking 70 years of independence.
Adams hoped the Giro’s start in Israel will help grow the sport of cycling locally as well as show Israel to millions of people around the world.
Last year, 840 million people watched some portion of the Giro D’Italia on TV, and this year the number is expected to be a billion, according to Danny Benaim, CEO of Comtec Group, which is the production company in charge of the Big Start Israel and has overseen other major sporting events in Israel. In contrast, the Super Bowl had 114 million viewers.
After the race’s conclusion in Eilat, almost 1,000 people and three cargo planes full of bikes and gear will fly out of tiny Uvda airport in the space of an hour to reach the next stage of the race in Italy.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report
