LAMPRE-MERIDA is spending the first rest day of the Giro d'Italia 2015 in San Benedetto del Tronto.

The day comes at the end of 9 stages. Yesterday Diego Ulissi unsuccessfully tried to escape from the bunch in the early part of the race and in the end Polanc finished 15th 1'43" behind winner Tiralongo, who finished off an 11-rider attack.

The list of the impressive things for LAMPRE-MERIDA in the first part of the Pink Race is long: two victories (Polanc in the 5th stage and Ulissi in the 7th stage), one third place (Modolo in the 6th stage), three days for Polanc as leader of the KOM classification, two awards as the Super Team of the stage and one day for Niemiec as virtual maglia rosa.

"In the first part of the Giro, we improved our performances day by day, with the top being the two victories," sports director Orlando Maini explained. "We raced trying to exploit the best of our characteristics: dynamism, fighting spirit, group spirit.

"Thanks to these qualities, we gave our sponsors a very good exposure and we gave our fans important satisfactions. Also the support by Xu Gang and Grmay who both are at their debut in the Giro d'Italia, was important.

"Today our riders will try to recover as much as possible, so they'll be ready to be protagonist on the pink roads again tomorrow."