Giro dell'Emilia - Maxime Bouet: "a race that scares a lot of riders"
This Saturday, team Arkéa-Samsic will start the Giro dell’Emilia, a classic that finishes with a circuit around the Sanctuary of San Luca.
“The Giro dell’Emilia is one of the hardest races on the calendar. I sometimes joke about it with other riders in the peloton. It scares a lot of them, it can even seem more difficult than the Giro di Lombardia. The first part of the race is relatively calm and then we come to the final circuit, which has to be completed five times, with the finish in San Luca. It’s urban, there’s no respite and it’s extremely steep. It’s an effort almost akin to that of the Flèche Wallonne. But in Bologna, you climb that wall five times without being able to recover.”
“After the Coppa Agostoni, the Giro d’Emilia is a much tougher and more selective race. Its final circuit, which finishes in San Luca on the heights of Bologna, usually crowns a very strong rider. It’s a puncheur’s finish. You have to be in very good condition to be in the match and fight for victory at the top of this 2km, 9% gradient”.