Cult Energy Pro Cycling’s Alex Kirsch made a fantastic debut during today’s 175.5 kilometer long first race of the season, Trofeo Santanyi, on Mallorca. He stole the limelight by first breaking away from the field right from the gun with companion Damien Garcia (Froy Oslo) and eventually, he was the last man standing before the bunch sprint.
 

The breakaway duo quickly worked up a solid lead of more than twelve minutes before different teams ignited their engines, joined forces and started reeling them back in. However, the 24 year-old Luxembourgian Cult Energy Pro Cycling rider didn’t give in without a fight and he and his companion managed to hold off the peloton for a long period of time. With 40 kilometers to go, Kirsch went solo and dug deep to maintain a gap to the chasing peloton but eventually, they caught up on him.

With 20 kilometers to go, the sprinter teams started the inevitable fight for position in the front of the pack and with three kilometers remaining, the hectic in-fight resulted in a crash. However, Matteo Pelucchi (IAM Cycling) was the fastest of the remaining sprinters in the pack and won the race.

Cult Energy Pro Cycling DS, Luke Roberts states:

“It was a very windy day and naturally, that didn’t particularly help Alex out there but he did a super strong job and managed to create some fuss by going solo and taking the award as the most aggressive rider today. Entering the final, we were a bit unlucky as Michael (Carbel) had a flat and we had to bring him back up in the crosswind section. We made it up there and took control fairly early but as we missed a corner, we lost our position in the pack and it was all over for us. Tomorrow’s a completely different race in hilly terrain and with an uphill finish and we’ll probably change the entire line-up,” Roberts concludes.

The man in the limelight, Alex Kirsch, says:

"My role was to cover the breakaways and I was fortunate enough to hit the right one at the right time. Unfortunately, we were only two to share the workload and the fierce head and tailwind made it very difficult to maintain the gap. However, I'm very happy about my debut and proud to be able to flash the Cult  Energy jersey out there in the front of the race."